Haight Is A Strong Word
by serenaandapen
Summary: Bella Swan is a Berkeley dropout and is searching for anything and everything that will alienate her from her perfectly structured past. But once she goes too far, only an auburn-haired stranger can redeem her from the mess she's made for herself. AU OOC
1. Spiraling

**This is just a project I thought could be interesting. It's a bit outrageous, I know, but whatever. Not nearly as much dialogue as I normally do, but it's just going to be a short little story (and I mean REALLY short) before I update for anything else. Let me know what you think. Have mercy on me (:**

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**Bella Swan**

_lifting the city to Heaven which exists and is everywhere about  
us!  
Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstasies!_

-**Allen Ginsberg, **_**Howl**_

I first see Edward Cullen through a curtain of wooden beads and pot smoke.

It is one of those times where you kind of see someone from behind or at a weird angle, and you're ninety percent sure they're gorgeous, but then they could potentially face you head-on and wind up being hideous. I narrow my eyes, trying to see him properly through the haze around my face and through the long strands of beading that hang over the open doorframe in front of me. Yep. Definitely gorgeous.

He has this ridiculous hair that looks like a red-brown box color that I used to dye my hair in high school, and his teeth are so ridiculously white that the kid can obviously have never had a drink of coffee or a cigarette a day in his life. He is standing beside Peter, whose house we are all in, and they're doing one of those bro handshakes with slapping and snapping and all of that other unnecessary shit. Peter claps him on the back once, introducing him to the harem of girls that Pete is currently trying to entertain. They all laugh at something Edward says that obviously can't really have been _that_ funny, tossing their overly-processed hair and licking their lips. My fingers claw at the arm of the couch I am sitting on.

"What are you looking at?" Emmett whispers into my ear, his stubble tickling the skin where his lips are moving.

I turn to look up at him, flinching when his rough hand slides beneath the hem of my skirt. Forcing a smile on my chapped lips, I feign ignorance.

"Nothing," I say, leaning into his shoulder like I am expected to. I can't keep my eyes from flickering back through that curtain to the auburn-haired boy standing by the door with his hands jammed in his pockets.

It's the beginning of summer, and we've all come together under one roof like we always do, playing music and catching up and occasionally torching up a bowl or five. The air is hot and thick and the sun is turning the room a deep and vibrant orange.

Peter's apartment is where we always come. He lives in Upper Haight, in an apartment within an old Victorian that had been renovated into four pretentiously hipster living spaces. Pete's dad pays the rent, and we all use the space. The rooms are splashed with paint and random text from books and plays and movies, and the various furniture pieces are so worn in by all of us that the couch I'm sitting on as I watch Edward Cullen from across the room almost perfectly fits the contours of my body.

We've all been friends for what seems like forever-Rose, Alice, Emmett, and me-even though I've lived a different life in a different time before my mother and step-father, Phil, set me free into the world. I like to imagine myself as a free spirit, not to be tied down by anything substantial and to skip through life enjoying it in the way that it was meant to be enjoyed. Of course, this is a fairly recent enlightenment.

I attended private school in Southern California before beginning studies at Berkeley, earning the praise and congratulations of my paternal grandparents, my mother's clients, and my step-father's colleagues. My mom and Phil themselves were disappointed, of course, that I hadn't chosen their alma mater. Stanford University strangely held no appeal to me after I visited Berkeley the spring semester of my senior year. That was the first decision I was able to make against my parents wishes, and it felt good. I was to study English with a double minor in professional writing and journalism, and my conservative parents were proud regardless of the extreme liberal influence of the San Franciscan university.

My childhood had been fairly normal to the naked and uninformed eye. I'd been raised to be able to discern between what was "right" and "wrong" and I knew how to cross my ankles when I sat and how to make small talk with adults that wore too much perfume. I had Lacoste-wearing prep school friends and I was on the honor roll and I took ballet every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. But in the sixth grade when my dad decided that he didn't love my mom anymore and that he loved someone else instead, things changed. The divorce was nasty. Phil moved in. I acted normally, and I went through all the motions, but I knew that nothing would be the same anymore.  
Thus came the decision with Berkeley.

I knew that I needed to make a change, but I didn't know how to do it. I tried to dye my light brown hair the color of Edward Cullen's my freshman year of high school, and I took art instead of Girls' Choir against my mother's wishes. I called my step-dad 'Phil' even though my mother asked me to call him 'Dad,' and I smoked cigarettes in the mall parking lot with my friends because I thought it was dangerous and rebellious. I had no idea that I hadn't seen _anything_ yet.

I was ignorant and optimistic the day Phil drove us to Berkeley to leave me for good. He and my mom helped carry my suitcases and linens amongst other things to my room, but left without helping me unpack any of it. My mother planted a kiss to my cheek as she floated out the door in patent leather Tod's loafers, patting me in a barely-there hug as I stood there with my mouth open. She left me there in the open doorway without any help or guidance. Just up and left, with a glance over her shoulder as she pushed open the door to the stairway as she said one thing to me in parting.

"We expect great things from you, Isabella," she'd said. I'd heard it eighteen million times and it put a weight on my shoulders like a ton of bricks. They all expected great things. So what would happen if my best wasn't good enough?

I lasted the first semester at Berkeley before I met Emmett.

His younger brother, Jasper, lived in the dorm with me on the opposite hall, and Emmett and I had met one morning in November when I was brushing my teeth in one of four co-ed bathrooms on campus.

My toothbrush was red, and my mother had bought it for me. I had a dribble of toothpaste on my bottom lip.

Emmett was at the sink beside me, washing his face with faded plaid boxers hanging loosely around his hips after spending the night in the dorm with Jasper. He smirked, catching my eyes in the mirror as he patted his face dry with a bleach-stained hand towel. I can remember the way my breath hitched in my throat when he suddenly moved near me, the hard planes of his chest invading the little bubble of personal space I liked to keep. I could smell the soap and this grassy, sweet scent radiating from his warm chest, and he moved so close to me so slowly that I froze like a deer in headlights. His thumb tasted salty when he wiped the toothpaste from the corner of my mouth with it, a lazy smile on his full lips, and I stared after him as he walked from the bathroom without a single word.

It was him. He was that change I was looking for, that edge of danger that I'd wanted so badly for so long. I don't know how I knew this, but it was something about the way that he looked at me that morning like I was something to eat...something about the way so he came so close to me without any hesitation. I even wrote about him that night for a writing assignment-I know, it's creepy. But I sat at my desk until three in the morning, pounding furiously at my keyboard as I struggled to remember the outline of his muscles and the sharp angle of his jaw. I think from that moment on, I was smitten.

I saw him again the next week on Haight Street at The Red Vic, an old resort hotel that had been renovated into several spaces including a tiny cafe.  
Haight-Ashbury was a neighborhood in San Francisco that I was learning to appreciate. It was a good walk away from campus, but the area was so rich with history and had been the home of so many brilliant philosophical and musical minds that I felt a little revolutionary just by breathing the air. It had been so famous and so revered and so _criticized_ by people like my parents that I felt a little thrill in my stomach every time I came there.

Okay. Plus I was an extreme nerd. Maybe I still am. But that's beside the point.

It would have been smart for me to turn around and walk right back out when I recognized Emmett at a table with Jasper and a girl that lived next door to me, Jessica. I could have grabbed my coffee and Danish and I could have left without a trace. But of course, with my being so utterly and devastatingly _me_, I just stared at the kid and his brown hair and perfect brown eyes for just long enough for Jasper to recognize me and wave me over.

He was _that_ kind of guy-the one who doesn't really know you or talk to you, but is interested in saying hello for a minute even if he's seen you only once or twice. But I've had relatively good breeding, and even my supreme awkwardness couldn't have excused me to bolt out of there like I hadn't seen them, so I walked carefully over to the table trying desperately not to trip over my own feet or spill my coffee everywhere.

"Bella," Jasper acknowledged with a smirk. Of course he remembered my name. "Have a seat."

I walked out of the cafe that afternoon with a date and a lump in my throat.

Emmett, I found out over dinner a few days and telephone calls later, was a UC Berkeley drop-out and had big hopes of taking over his father's small branch of insurance companies once he got his shit together. I was fascinated by him, and my young and immature mind admired him for doing imaginary things like _following his heart_ and _living in the moment_. He was so completely concerned with his beat-up guitar and his perfectly grungy apartment (that was in a space that I knew to be a fortune-per-month) that he forgot to do things like get haircuts and pay rent on time and buy groceries.

Daddy McCarty was left to pick up all the slack. Over half a year later and I still haven't met him once.

Emmett's apartment was tucked away on Ashbury Street directly below Peter, where I am now as I stare at Edward Cullen, and down the street from the former Grateful Dead house. Peter and I became fast friends, and I couldn't tell if it was because I felt that I needed to make him like me to impress Emmett or if I generally enjoyed him on my own. He'd wander down stairs and walk through the door without knocking, tossing Em baggies of ganj and vintage Playboys and blotter papers with little Alice in Wonderland Cheshire cats all over them. I had no idea what they were until a week later, when I popped one on my tongue in front of ten pairs of watching eyes and watched the walls move.

Thus, a new tradition was born. A bunch of twenty-somethings, with the exception of me and Jasper, came together to smoke a lot of weed and play a lot of music, musing about nothing while I scribbled furiously in my notebook. I was trying to carry out life-long dreams that, because of Emmett, might never have come into fruition.

By the end of the next week, my virginity was gone and I'd experienced my third trip with LSD. I'd only ever heard of it in chemistry classes. It made me feel young and embarrassed and like I had something to prove.

My mother started worrying, and when I stopped picking up her calls, she began writing letters. Winter break was approaching quickly. She was concerned. _Are you even coming home at all, Honey Bee?_ she'd written. _Your grandparents are coming for Christmas and we'd all love you have you home._

Before now, my homecoming hadn't even been an option. But when I began responding to her emails and letters, she recognized my fervor and excitement over foreign things she'd never heard of and grew worried. One letter sent out on December fourteenth, the day before I was to come home, was a full description of Allen Ginsberg's _Howl _and its effect on the way that I saw the world. Renee was troubled, to say the least.

I wrote home later that week saying that I was not going to return to the University of California, Berkeley.

I hadn't found a place there, as I'd hoped. I came to San Fran looking to start fresh. College only reminded me of how inadequate I truly was. My place was in the Haight, with Emmett and his fast friends and his fast life, living in a stranger's shoes that were so very different than the ones I was used to wearing.  
In life, there are always people better than you, but you never actually think about that. _You _always want to be the best, even if it's impossible. Berkeley was just a constant reminder that I wasn't.

But still, Emmett was...intimidating. I think fear was part of what drove me into his bed just nine days after the toothpaste incident. Maybe it was a little fear, maybe it was this nagging feeling that everything was destiny. My last received grade before the finals that I _didn't_ take at Berkeley was an A+ on the writing assignment I'd written about him, and Emmett had read it when it was returned and kept it tucked away in his desk drawer. I was flattered that he'd liked it so much. He asked me to move in at the end of December.

Rosalie Hale swiftly became my very best friend.  
She wore belly shirts with a hoop shoved through her navel and wore her impossibly long hair wavy and loose. She bought me random presents "just because" and watched old movies with me on the TV set whenever I was on my period and Emmett got mad and went to Peter's because I didn't want to have sex. She talked to me whenever I felt the secretive pangs of homesickness, and she was the closest thing I'd ever had to a real friend. Rosalie made it easier to accept how much my life was changing and she made me hopeful that maybe one day, I would harbor no regrets.

I think part of the problem with Haight-Ashbury, especially with us, was all the history. We felt young and rebellious, like it was our sole job in life to live up to the stereotypes people automatically thought of when they learned what neighborhood we were from. We certainly had a lot to live up to, and we weren't even anywhere close although we liked to believe we were.

But maybe we just liked the drugs, and we liked the music. Maybe none of it was even about the peace. Maybe we were fakers.

Actually, I know we were. Hell, we still are.

Emmett and I sleep on a mattress with a sheet over us even though he and I both know that the McCarty's have more than a few million dollars in the old bank account. But it was and is all about the _pretense_, and the love we thought we shared for an era that we weren't even alive in. I thought I did the right thing, leaving college, and he agreed that whatever felt _right_ was what the universe had chosen for me. It was all so fucked up, but it was all so thrilling.

I had learned to lose everything about myself.

Alice Brandon was fucking Peter then in his upstairs apartment, and I'd started seeing her around. She was tiny and dark-haired and I liked her a lot. She worked at this crazy lingerie boutique in the Haight that had these giant fishnet-stockinged legs growing out of the store front. Her parents were old hippies that lived in the area, but she was modernized and normal and liked to come down to talk to me whenever Emmett was gone off somewhere.

"I have to tell you something, Bella," she whispered one afternoon in March, keeping her voice low although it was just the two of us in the apartment. "It's a secret, and when I tell you, you have to act normally so the connection won't be made with me."

I nodded with hesitation, wrapping a strand of knotted hair around my finger so tight that my fingernail looked purple. "Okay, spill," I prompted.

She sighed heavily, pulling her tiny legs beneath her on the red couch from where she sat across from me. "The other day, Peter came down here to give Emmett his deck of cards back after the party last week, and he...he _heard _something."

"What do you mean?" I asked, feeling my eyebrows pull together.

I think that maybe I already knew, but I needed to hear someone else say the words.

Alice scratched her short-cropped hair, running her finger against the row of gold hoops hanging from her ear. "Rosalie Hale was here. She's sleeping with Emmett. Peter knows it for an absolute fact.

I just stared at her cat-like eyes, my stomach turning like a lake in the springtime.

"I'm sorry," she said quickly, her eyes pained. "I just had to tell you. I can't keep watching you with him like everything is perfect when he's slutting around on you. It's not fair."

And at that, she leapt from the couch and out the door without even shutting it.

I stayed on that couch for a very long time, staring at the wall and not doing anything, not even crying.  
I knew that I didn't really love Emmett like I told myself that I did. I knew that there had to have been a reason he left me alone so much. But what killed me was that it was _Rosalie_. Rosalie, my friend.

I had my bags packed within thirty minutes and was riding away from that apartment on Ashbury Street within forty-five. Emmett called my cell phone eight times between then and the next morning as I ignored them from under the sheets of a dirty hotel room bed.

_Hey, Bella, where are you? Your drawers are all empty. Did you go somewhere? Pick up._

_Hey, what's going on? You're freaking me the fuck out. Where _are_ you, B? Pete's party is tonight. Call me if you're not going to make it on time. Bye._

_Bella, it's me. What the fuck happened to you? Peter cancelled. Call me. Please._

_Emmett again. I'm coming to look for you if you don't pick up. _

_Okay, so I know that Peter knows what's going on. And fucking Alice, too. So I at least deserve to know. At least have the fucking decency to pick up my calls._

_Bella, it's Emmett. You need to calm the fuck down and stop being so stupid. Alice told me that you think I'm cheating on you, which is fucking ridiculous. Get over yourself. Come back home whenever you're not such a fucking female._

_I'm going to bed without you. The door's open. Uh, okay. Um...yeah. Call me, please. _

_It's me. I need to talk to you. We need to work this out. I can't sleep, so, uh, call me. I need to know you're okay. None of us know where you are. Please, please call. I'll do anything. I, um, I love you._

I wandered back home the next day, weaker than ever, apologizing and kissing him and telling him how awful I felt for believing Alice's lies.

I was bent over the kitchen counter before I could even blink, and so stoned into oblivion an hour later that I can hardly remember any of it.

What an amazing life. My parents would be so proud.

I can't help but remember those phone messages as I feel Emmett touching me so intimately as we sit on the leather couch in Peter's living room. It all happened so long ago, almost four months ago, and I'm different now. He's different, I'm different, we're different.  
Alice doesn't approve of any of this. She's standing by Peter and Edward in spite of the fact that she and Peter have been over for a while, shooting dirty looks in my direction. I can't decide if the snears and stink-eyes are directed towards me or Emmett. Maybe both.  
She's thinks I'm foolish. She even tried to confront Rosalie about it. But she's only looking out for my well-being. I think.

What kills me is that Rosalie is here, and I hugged her hello. Emmett denied everything, like I knew he would, and I'm sitting here forcing myself to believe all of it even though I found one of her flimsy black bras shoved inside of my pillow case. So..._if_ Emmett is fucking another woman _and _fucking me at the same time, aren't I allowed to look at Edward Cullen without feeling bad about it?

The answer is no. I love Emmett, and he loves me. He would never lie to me like that. Everything is just a string of nasty rumors. He loves me, and he believes in me, and he was right. I've made all the right decisions, and Emmett and I belong together. And Edward Cullen is just some random guy who wandered in off the street like all of us did once before.


	2. Blockade

**I think I'll try to wrap this little nugget up in another three or four chapters and THEN I'll finally try and update my other 32432423 stories (: Sorry for any tense/spelling/grammatical errors. Let me know what you think.**

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_Give me one reason to stay here, and I'll turn right back around  
Said I don't want to leave you lonely, you got to make me change my mind._

-**Tracy Chapman, **_**Give Me One Reason**_

Rosalie slinks over to me from where she was standing across the room.

Aside from the awkward hello hug, I haven't seen or heard from her in months. She left me exactly one voicemail, the morning after I came home to Emmett.

She said she was sorry, that she didn't know what was happening, and that it was all a big misunderstanding. Ha.

It was so typically female of me to forgive Emmett and not Rosalie. That's what happens so often, isn't it? The cheating bastard is forgiven but the other woman is always the one at fault. Rosalie wasn't and still isn't in a relationship. Emmett was. The dots are connecting, pointing to who the real culprit was, but I can't allow myself to think straight. Maybe I'm brainwashed.

Rosalie looks like walking sex. It's really nothing new, except now it irritates me where it didn't before. Her face is carefully made up to look not made up. She plasters a smile on her face as she approaches me, and Emmett tries his hardest not to make eye contact with her because he knows I'm watching.

"Hi again," she says, crossing her arms and leaning away from me as if she's scared I'll hit her or something.

"Hi," I echo, moving my hand stealthily onto Emmett's knee. He jerks slightly at the contact.

Rosalie licks her full lips, her blue eyes darting around the room to see if anyone's watching. Everyone is, even Edward Cullen. Her gaze meets mine again.

"Can we...can we talk?" She points her thumb over her shoulder, indicating that we should go somewhere private. Go somewhere where Emmett isn't.

I mull this over. I know I don't owe her anything. This tough guy attitude I'm putting on definitely isn't easy, especially since part of me wants to fall through the floor and hide because Rosalie looks so much fucking _better_ than I do and I know that Emmett recognizes that. But I have to stand my ground. So I nod, and stand up from the couch.

Everyone gets considerably quieter as Rosalie and I walk together. I try to focus on her blonde hair swaying back and forth between her shoulder blades and not on what's about to happen. I notice Alice's eyes narrowing from where she stands by the bathroom door. Emmett is a statue.

"Alright, people, let's shotgun some of these motherfuckers," Peter calls suddenly, waving a can of cheap beer in the air. "Who thinks they can beat my record time? Nine seconds is hard to triumph!"

The small crowd is riled as they all move toward the kitchen. I sigh with relief. Thank God for Peter. Edward Cullen follows everyone else, glancing over his shoulder as Rosalie and I settle into the corner by the front door. My hands are sweating.

"Belly?" she says in a tiny voice, like a baby. "Belly, I'm sorry for everything. I miss you."

Her words are rehearsed, generic. She takes my hand, and I'm embarrassed that mine is so sweaty. She presses a kiss to my knuckles, her eyes burning into mine as she waits for me to say something.

Rosalie, Rosalie. She's a robot, I swear.

I steal my hand from hers and pull my hair behind my ear, trying and failing to look casual. She frowns infinitesimally.

"I don't think I can forgive what you did, Rose," I answer, my cheeks flushing as I try to grow a backbone. "I trusted you, and you betrayed that trust."

My voice is calm and even, and I can't really find it within myself to get angry. I try to think about the past months and the anger I'd dealt with, but it's like a mental blockade is up and I can't see anything.

Rosalie laughs bitterly, all of the pretense of kindness suddenly gone. "I don't understand what the big deal is, Bella. This kind of thing happens. People fuck other people, and we move on."

"People don't fuck other people's _boyfriends_," I shot back. "At least not people who are friends with each other."

Rosalie waves a hand dismissively, turning her face and glancing back to where Emmett is sitting. "It's whatever, Bella. This isn't completely my fault. It was Emmett's idea, not mine. I guess he can't really help himself."

It takes all that's within me not to smack the devilish grin off her face once she says that. The blockade is crumbling for the first time in a long time, and I can see a little glimpse of what I've been trying to keep out. I see _red_.

"I guess he couldn't," I reply, backing up two steps. "But at the end of the day, he came back to _me _and not you. Because that's what happens to whores, Rosalie. They get _fucked_."

I didn't realize how loud we'd been talking, and I don't realize initially that the room has gone completely silent again. Rosalie mouth opens into an 'O' of shock, and all I can hear is her gasp and the dripping of beer against the kitchen linoleum.

I know I have no choice but to leave now. If I stay, the silence lingers and Peter's party is ruined. So I try to keep an even pace as I snatch my bag from Emmett's couch. I'm out the door in thirty seconds, and the whole time I try not to break into a sprint.

The Rosalie bridge has been burned.

Emmett's apartment is silent and dark, a tiny lamp by the bay window over the street glowing dimly. I am crying for the first time in a long while. I know why I'm crying, but I can't really admit it to myself.

The music picks up from Peter's apartment again; I can feel the bass in the pit of my stomach. A few weeks ago, I would have been dancing with all of my friends, still unexplainably in love and blissful in my ignorance. But here I am. Alone, in an apartment that's empty except for me. I'm back at square one.

Emmett comes in an hour later. I hear the door swing open and hit the wall from where my cheek is pressed against the mattress, but I don't turn over to look at where I know he's standing through the open doorway. He doesn't bother to turn any lights on as he makes his way into our bedroom. His shoes make a hollow thud against the floor as he kicks them off and pulls the cover down. He thinks I'm sleeping.

I can hear his breathing slow as he lays there, afraid to move too much. He knows he fucked up. And while I know this should satisfy me, it doesn't. It makes me feel more like an alien. I'm laying in a bed with someone who, in reality, is little more than a stranger. Someone I thought I knew once. Someone who didn't come after me when he knew something was wrong. Someone who will wake up in the morning with a stiff neck and an aching back because he was afraid to wake me. Afraid to face me.

I wake up the next morning, and I pick up the phone to call my mother. I can't make myself do it, so I hang up on the second ring. I screen every call for the rest of the day to make sure it's not her, calling back.

Emmett forgot my birthday this year.  
I'd woken up early that morning, sitting up in bed listening to him snore as I waited for him to wake up. His lips smacked when he opened his eyes. They were bloodshot that morning. He smiled at me with his straight white teeth, and my heart melted.  
"Morning, beautiful," he said, his voice thick from sleep. He craned his neck, lifting his chin indicating that I was supposed to kiss him. I did, of course, and his lips were dry and thick. He didn't say anything after that.  
I watched him, confused. Emmett rolled from the bed, pulling his boxers on from where he'd discarded them on the floor, and walked into the bathroom. He shut the door. That meant I wasn't allowed in.  
The shower started a few breaths later, and I slumped against my pillow. He was going to open the door any second, a sly grin on his face as he welcomed me in. He'd kiss me and pull me under the steam and mist with him, lifting me and pinning me against the wall as he wished me happy birthday over and over again.

Surprise, surprise, the door stayed shut and Emmett came back in the room, boxers on. I followed him into the kitchen like a lost dog. He moved, I moved.

He cooked breakfast for himself while I stared.  
"Did you want anything?" he asked as he fried one egg, not even bothering to turn around to look at me.  
"No," I lied. My voice was small and pathetic. It made me angry.  
I wound up back in bed, on my back as I stared at the ceiling. Emmett moved around the apartment for a while. I heard the turning of pages, and the TV was on for a while, but eventually he came back in the bedroom.  
_Just kidding_, I imagined him saying. _I remembered. I was just pulling your leg._

Instead, he put on his silver tank watch that he claimed to hate and ran a hand through his hair as he stared into the mirror over the dresser.  
"I gotta go, babe," he said to his reflection. Finally, he turned to me just before pulling a shirt over his head. "I promised Peter I'd drive him to pick up his car from the shop."  
I was so angry that I couldn't even speak to him. All that I kept thinking was that if I were at home for my birthday, like I would have been if I were the same Bella back in August who was an actual college student, my mother would have made me breakfast in bed and given me a present. She and Phil would have sung 'Happy Birthday.'

But instead, I was here.

When I didn't respond, Emmett shook his head as if my silence was the biggest irritation in his entire life, and trudged out of the bedroom.  
"It's my birthday," I called after him. I didn't mean to say anything. It just happened.  
He turned back to look at me slowly. At first, he smiled. "Get out of here," he said, laughing softly as if I were joking. I watched as his smile faded, and he brought his palm to his forehead.  
"Shit," he cursed, his eyes falling to the floor. "Bella, fuck, I'm so sorry. You didn't tell me."  
"Yes I did," I argued. My voice had no inflection. "I told you last week. And two days ago."  
He walked slowly back to the bed, sitting on the edge until I looked at him. "I promise I'll make this up to you," he said quietly. For a second, I believed he was sincere.  
"But I gotta run," he said, standing up quickly and checking his watch. "Peter's gotta be there by eleven." He left the room, looking at me over his shoulder. "I'm sorry, babe! I promise I'll be home soon, and I promise I'll make it up to you! Anything you want, it's yours."  
And he was out the door before I could say anything.

For my nineteenth birthday, I got fucked. I never even came. Emmett did. And he was asleep by ten o'clock. Happy Birthday to me.

The morning after Peter's party feels exactly like that morning. Like I expect something from Emmett, but I know I won't get it. When I wake up, he's in the shower with the door shut. He's not humming to himself like he usually does. He's scared of me.

I flip through a magazine while I wait for him to get out. It doesn't take long, probably because he wants to be showered, dressed, and out of the room before I get up. He's surprised when he comes out of the bathroom, a towel low around his waist like the morning we first saw each other.  
"Oh. Hi," he says, his eyes round.  
"Hey," I reply. The silence around our voices saturates my pores, and I feel like I'm going to throw up. He stands there for a minute, his shaving bag in his hand as he decides what to do. And, because I'm _me_, of course I don't speak before he does.  
"I, uh, I have to do some stuff today. My dad wants to have lunch," he says, finally deciding to open one of his drawers to find something to wear.  
"Okay. That will be nice," I answer. It's just so fucking formal. Part of me wants to ask if I can come along, because I still haven't met the man, but I bite my tongue.  
"We can spend some time together before then, if you want," he offers, probably feeling really proud of himself for being so thoughtful. I inwardly roll my eyes.  
"What do you want to do?" I ask, pulling the cover tight against my chest.  
Emmett smiles. "Pete gave me some good shit last night for helping him fix his car. We could hit a little bit of that, if you want."  
Weed. Of course. I laugh at little to myself. I'm not surprised. But, of course, I agree. Because he wants me to.

Smoke fills my lungs as I sit criss-cross on top of the sheet, my knees against Emmett's. He grins as I take my hit, opening his palm so I'll pass him the piece while I inhale. My body is humming, and it's a good, familiar feeling. I can feel my heart pounding in my chest as everything moves slower. I don't watch Emmett like he watches me. Finally, I exhale, and I feel good for the first time in what seems like weeks. Emmett is with me, not somewhere else, and I'm starting to forget what my brain wants me to forget. I forget about Rosalie, about the party, about my birthday.  
I lay my head against the pillow, and I'm asleep before Emmett can pass the bowl back to me.

When I wake up, he's gone.  
The bowl is on the nightstand, the weed packed inside all black and charred into resin. I know Emmett will be scraping it out and saving it when he gets home, so I don't bother to clean it out. There a post-it on Emmett's pillow, his messy, boyish writing stretching across it.

_Lunch with dad, _it says. Then something is crossed out several times. Below it, he signed his name, an _I love you_ tacked on the end.  
I dress quickly in a black cardigan that I know is too hot for the San Francisco summer and a pair of jeans that are too tight in the legs. Slipping my feet into heinous yellow flats I bought at a garage sale, I know I'll be sweating the minute I step outside.  
I scrape some change out of the dish on the counter beside the door, counting out six dollars in quarters and sealing them in a plastic bag. I toss it into my purse, and I leave to have lunch by myself. Of course, I could call a friend to meet me, but that would require having actual friends. All I have is Emmett. Everyone else I know belongs to him. Nothing I have is my own.

I wind up at a little street cafe I can't remember the name of. The girl behind the counter can't be older than I am, and luckily she's not angry when I pay for my sandwich and coffee in quarters.  
The chairs outside on the patio are metal, and a little rusty, but I sit in one anyway. The streets smell like trash and sun and trees, and I try to relax. I'm almost to that point before I see him.

Edward Cullen is across the street. The sun is playing in his Clairol hair, and his shoulders hunch over slightly as he hurries across the street. A car honks at him. I laugh. Then I stop laughing. Because he's walking into the exact same cafe that I'm eating at.  
I try to calm myself down, circling my hands around my coffee cup and taking deep breaths. And it's absolutely ridiculous. I've seen him once, and he's off limits. He's off limits because he's Peter's, and Peter is Emmett's. Emmett's aren't mine. He pretends like they are, but they aren't.  
So I sit at my little table outside all alone, counting my breaths and waiting for Edward Cullen to walk out with his food and to be on his merry way.

Of course, nothing ever happens the way I want it to.

Edward Cullen walks out of the door directly to my right and onto the little patio, taking a seat at the table right in front of me so he's facing me, head on. He's not looking at me, of course, because unless he has an excellent memory of my face from last night, he won't know me from Eve.  
He has just a coffee and a newspaper. The coffee contradicts my thoughts from last night about how he's achieved a perfectly white smile. His father must be a dentist or something.  
His jaw is strong and angular, a light sprinkle of stubble across it. His features are all that way, like modern architecture, except for his crazy mane of reddish brown hair that looks pulled at and slept on.  
I try not to stare as I nibble at my sandwich. But of course I'm looking when he looks, and of course it's awkward.  
Quickly, I look away. I look to the side, across the street, at my lap, anywhere else. But _of course _this makes me look even more fucking conspicuous than if I'd just stared straight into his face the whole time. When my eyes eventually let themselves fall back on him, he's looking at me still. And he's smiling.

"I know you," he says across open air.  
My mouth falls open, and I remind myself to snap it shut. I don't speak as he crumples his newspaper underneath his armpit and rakes his metal chair against the concrete. He walks to my table and sits in the chair opposite me. He speaks again.  
"I saw you last night, at Peter Dixon's apartment, right? Please tell me that was you, or else this will be extremely awkward for me." He laughs a little, and I want to shiver.  
"Yeah, that was me," I make myself say. I have to cut this shit out. He'll start thinking there's something wrong with me. "I was there," I add unnecessarily.  
He looks at me for another beat with an amused look on his face before smoothing his newspaper out on the table top.  
"I'm Edward, by the way. Edward Cullen." He offers his hand to me over the table and shows his chiclet teeth again.  
I already know his name. Peter told Alice and I last night before anyone had gotten there, telling us to be nice to him in case he felt uncomfortable. I'd painted the mental image of an odd misfit that needed help being social with our group. Someone like I had been, back at Berkeley. Of course, that wasn't the case. And even if it had been, there was no way I could have gotten the nerve to talk to him. First of all, there was Emmett. Second, there had been too many places to hide. Now, I'm out in the open and an easy kill. I take his hand.  
"Bella," I respond, blushing as I take in the warmth of his grasp.  
"Bella," he echoes, smiling again. His eyes are a strange shade of gray, and his gaze is inescapable. "I had a dog named Bella when I was little."  
A laugh scrapes up my throat. "A dog? Wow. Thanks."  
"She was a beagle. I loved that dog. So, in effect, it's a compliment to you that you have the same name as her," he replies, speaking so matter-of-factly that I want to laugh all over again.  
"Beagles _are_ loyal companions," I muse, relaxing slightly and leaning back into my chair.  
"Bella was pretty loyal. Until my sister sold her to a man at PetSmart for ten dollars," he says, laughing once.  
I smile like an idiot before I remind myself to say something. "So, Edward Cullen, tell me what brought you over to my table."  
Hm. One minute, I'm a psychopath, and the next, I'm flirting like a middle school girl.  
Edward Cullen shrugs, mirroring me as he leans back in his seat and crosses his ankles. "I'm alone, you're alone, and we sort of kind of know each other."  
"I don't know you," I say, raising an eyebrow. I can't ignore the fact that my heart is pounding so loud I can hear it in my ears.  
"Okay, fair enough," he agrees. "But we have mutual friends."  
"So you're Peter's buddy?"  
He nods, taking a long sip of his coffee. "I went to boarding school with him in Washington all through high school. He helped me find a place down here when my sister had a baby."  
"You moved here just because your sister was pregnant?" I ask, interested.  
He pauses, his brow furrowed, and I worry that I've said something wrong. But he starts speaking before I can apologize. "She needed help, I guess. She's married, so that's not the problem. It's just that none of our family is around here, and even between the two of them, it's hard work. I had nothing to do, really, so I came. We're pretty close."  
I'm intrigued. A twenty-something-year-old boy who moves to the Haight to help his sister take care of her baby. Not a story often told. But I leave the subject alone, because I've just met the kid, and he seems bothered by something. I try to think of something else to say that isn't tactless or stupid or boring.

"So you know Emmett McCarty," Edward Cullen states. It's not a question. "Jasper's brother," he adds when I don't answer immediately.  
"I know Emmett," I answer finally, nodding deeply. It almost hurts me to admit that, and I've only said that I simply know who he is, not the relationship we have.  
Edward Cullen laughs under his breath. "You've been dating Emmett for almost a year, right? I know more than you think I do."  
"How long have you even lived here?" I say, an edge to my voice.  
I see it in his eyes as he registers that something is bothering me. "I've been here since January, right after my niece was born. So almost six months."  
So a couple months after I'd come into the picture. "So what, have you just been lurking around stalking everyone Peter knows without even coming around to hang out with any of us?" I ask, trying to steer the subject away from Emmett. Part of me is disappointed in myself. But that part is not big enough to make me stop and think.  
Edward Cullen is not offended. Instead, he laughs for the umpteenth time, leaning his cheek into his palm and propping his elbow up on the table. "Can I be honest with you, Bella?"  
"Sure."  
"I'm not too crazy about your crowd." He waits for me to scowl, or show any signs of irritation. But what I say in reply shocks him.  
"Oh thank _God_," I answer, letting a whoosh of breath escape my lungs. "Neither am I."  
Edward Cullen's eyes widen for just a second. "What? That makes no sense. You're all together all the time. And if you think I don't know that you've been living with 'I know Emmett' for who knows how long, you're an idiot."  
My own words said back to me make that piece of disappointment inside of my stomach swell.  
"You don't really know anything, to be honest," I say back in a small voice. It's the kind of voice I use when I talk to Emmett. I hate it.  
Edward Cullen sighs and leans toward me over the table. "Oh, come on," he says in a slow, tolerant voice. His breath smells like mint and coffee beans. "I wasn't trying to be an ass. I'm just trying to get to know you."  
"Why?" I ask foolishly, looking up through my eyelashes.  
He deliberates for a moment, as if he's not sure of what he's about to say.  
"Because I like you, Bella. You're interesting, and I have a lot of time on my hands."  
"What does that mean?" I laugh, trying not to squeal internally like the teenager that I'm trying desperately not to be.  
"It means that I have nowhere to be today, and I need some company."  
He's not asking. But even if he was, it's not like I'd refuse him.

The park is almost empty, except for the occasional jogger or dog-walker, as Edward and I walk side-by-side beneath the shade of the trees. I'm trying to learn to call him by just his first name in my mind, now that I've actually met and talked to him. I'm also realizing that I'm spending too much time in my head.  
"Your hair has a little bit of red in it," he comments randomly, eyeing the top of my head.  
I self-consciously lift a hand to smooth my hair, not even bothering the wrestle with the tangles that I'm sure are there. "Not to be compared with your beautiful auburn locks, I'm sure," I tease, wincing as I realize how stupid I must sound. "Do you dye your hair or something?" I add.  
Edward raised his brows, taken aback. "Um, no? Of course not. Do I really look like that kind of guy?"  
I shrug. "We live in San Francisco. More guys have color-treated hair here than women."  
Edward laughs. "That _is_ true. But I'm not one of them. I might be the only _slightly _red-headed kid in my family, but it's au naturale, I promise."  
"The only red-head, huh?"  
Edward winces. "My sisters are all blonde. My dad left when I was really little, and I have no idea what he even looks like, so maybe that's where I got it from."  
I gasp a little too loudly. "Oh. I'm sorry."  
"It's really okay. I don't have any lasting issues over it or anything like that, so it's fine," he replies, smiling.  
"So who's the blonde? Your mother?" I ask, trying to move the conversation away from his father so he won't feel like I'm prying.  
Edward is quiet again. "Yeah. Mom is the platinum blonde one," he answers suddenly, and then he smiles at something in his head that I can't see or hear. I decide to stay quiet for a while.  
Edward and I walk together in oddly comfortable silence before I feel my cell phone buzz in my bag.

It's already three o'clock, and Emmett's left me a text message.

_Bella, where are you? I've been home for over an hour and a half and you didn't leave a note._

"I should go," I say suddenly, dropping my phone back into my purse.  
Edward frowns slightly. He still looks beautiful, of course. "What? Why?"  
I shake my head quickly, and I feel a strange sense of panic wash over me. Almost like Emmett knows where I am, and his text message was testing me. My brain is blocking out something that Emmett did that should make me feel less guilty for being with Edward, but I can't let myself think about it.  
"I just have to get home. You know, stuff to do." I hope he'll accept this.  
"Emmett's asking for you," Edward states. His shoulders slump over just slightly, and he sighs quietly. "Alright. I'll walk you back."

I speed walk the twelve blocks back to the apartment. Edward almost has to jog just to keep up, but I feel this crazy nervousness under my skin. And I know I shouldn't feel this way, because I did nothing wrong. It's not like Emmett never did much worse...

And that's when my brain shuts down. At least, it shuts down that train of thought. I won't allow myself to carry on that process. Instead, I keep propelling myself forward, the stoop of the old Victorian in clear sight.  
"Bella, wait," Edward calls to me, reaching forward and catching my arm. I stop suddenly, my body lurching as I jolt to a standstill. Suddenly, Edward is very close to my face, and my breath hitches in my throat.  
"What are you so afraid of?" he breathes. I realize for the first time that his eyes aren't gray. They're green. _Dark_ green, like grass in the evening.  
"I don't know," I say slowly. And I mean it. I don't know what I'm scared of.  
And then, at a nearly glacial pace, he leans in. I can feel the heat of his breath on my face and neck and chest and my skin is on _fire_. I feel goose bumps on the back of my legs as I stand there, frozen, waiting. His eyes flutter shut for just a moment as he pauses, waiting for me to come toward him, too. I see his tongue flick his bottom lip, his chest heaving. He brings a hand to my neck, his fingertips grazing my cheek, and my jaw slackens as I stand there. I'm completely unmoving. Because I can't believe it's happening.

But it doesn't. In effect, Edward is waiting for me. He's all but asking my direct permission. He's in front of me, a breath away, his eyelashes almost wisping against mine as he's waiting for me to make a move. It's my call. _What am I so afraid of?_

Of course. Of course I step away from him.

His hand stays posed in thin air how it was against my jaw for a moment before he lets it drop to his side in defeat. His gaze falls just over my shoulder, and he smirks just slightly. His expression tells me everything he's thinking.

That he should have known I would step away. That he should have known I'd be afraid.

He looks up to the Victorian that Emmett's apartment is in, his eyes squinting against the sun. "Afraid he sees you?" he asks, his voice huskier than before.  
I follow his gaze, up to the window I've stared out of so many times before. "That window just there is Emmett's bedroom," I answer, my voice shaking. "So, I guess I am."  
"You sleep in there, too. It's _your_ bedroom, Bella." His voice is patient and kind in spite of the last couple of minutes, and it makes me feel even worse that he's not angry or at the very least frustrated.  
"I guess it is," I say, partially to myself. I jump a little when I feel Edward's fingers intertwine with mine.  
"This is the part when I go home," he mutters in a low voice, his eyes crinkling at the edges as he grins at me. His lips find my cheek. "It's been a good three hours of my life, Bella."

And then his hand leaves mine, and I watch his retreating back as he walks in the direction we just came from. I had to stand there for a minute to catch my breath.

I can hear a pin drop after I'd let myself into the apartment.

The air smells like stale weed and Windex, which makes no sense considering we never clean the place.  
I listen to the floorboards creak as I walk towards the bay window, looking left and right for signs of Emmett.

I feel guilty.

"Emmett?" I call, nearly startling myself with the sound of my voice.  
"In here," another voice croaks. In the bedroom. The door is shut.  
I walk slowly. The door creaks open and I find him with his forehead leaned against his arm, his elbow propped against the window frame as he stands in front of the bedroom window that I'd been looking up at what seemed like hours ago. I can't breathe again, but for a totally different reason.  
Emmett's fingers stiffen as he gestures toward the street below, his eyes pinched shut. "What the hell was that?" he asks. His eyes stay closed.  
My heart sinks. My brain is completely closing off everything at this point, and my chest is pounding and my stomach is dropping and I feel sweat bead up at my temples.  
"What was what?" I ask. Playing dumb. Great idea, Bella.  
Emmett's angry now. I should have answered his question directly. His eyes flicker open, and his irises, normally a kind, deep brown, are swimming like lava.  
"Don't be an idiot, Bella. I saw you. I saw you with that fucking prick Peter invited last night."  
"It was nothing," I say immediately. I know right away I've made another mistake. I'm acting as guilty as I feel. I've already lost.  
Emmett takes a step toward me, and I step back instinctively. This makes him angrier.  
"That wasn't fucking _nothing_, Isabella," he spits through his teeth. "Obviously it wasn't _nothing_, otherwise the two of you wouldn't have been looking up here to see if I was watching."  
"I never thought you'd see," I mutter, my eyes on the floor. "I stepped away before anything could happen. I'm so-"  
"You're so _what_?" Emmett yells, his voice booming. "You're so _sorry_? Cause you're always _sorry_, right?"  
I take another half-step back. I can't say anything to him that will fix anything. I have to let him ride it out.  
He rips at his hair so hard I'm afraid he'll yank it out. He fumes, his chest heaving, until I see him relax just a tiny bit. I wait there, frozen, until his irises are solid again and his cheeks aren't red anymore.  
"Look," he rasps, swallowing thickly. "I'm sorry. I just...I can't believe what I just saw."  
The blockade in my brain lifts, just a crack, like a family leaves a garage door when then leave on vacation so the cat can still get in and out. My memory is less hazy, and all I see is the face of Rosalie Hale.

I feel like Emmett is reading my mind.  
He crosses the room in one bound, his huge hands on either side of my face. "I know that I haven't been fair to you," he says, much softer now as he replies to my thoughts. "I know. I know I might not be acting fairly even now. But what I just saw...Bella, it makes me _livid_."  
He could crush my face now, if he really wanted to. I'm not breathing.  
Surprisingly enough, his lips crash down on mine, and I cant believe it. But then, my reasoning kicks in. I'm like a football.  
Edward, for the afternoon, stole me away from Emmett. It's always been a competition to him. Now that Emmett has me back in his possession, all will be well.

Unless I get stolen away again.

But that's no way to think. I'm disappointed in myself again, because I'm never thinking the right way. Emmett doesn't deserve this from me.

Edward Cullen entertained me for the afternoon.  
I barely even know him.  
Emmett is changed now. He made a mistake, and I forgave him. It's not fair for me to punish him now for his mistakes in the past. So I kiss him back, my lips slackening as his tongue collides with mine.

I've been sleeping too much. I wake up again when the sky is dark, and for once, Emmett is still in the bed with me.  
My hair is even more knotted now. I know I'll eventually have to take a brush to it. Alice used to brush it for me, back when she still liked me. But I guess she was never really mine, either. Everything is traced back to Emmett.  
The curve of Emmett's back is illuminated from the glow of the streetlights. The muscles of his shoulders flex and relax as he breathes, and I lay there for a while, just looking at him. Suddenly, he turns over, and his eyes are open too.  
"Hi," he says in a sleepy voice, smiling at me.  
"Hi," I answer, burying my cheek into the pillow. I can't help but blush.  
His hand, wide and dry and warm, pushes down on my right hip, moving me to my back. He scoops his arm around my stomach, moving my back into his chest as he snuggles his face into my hair. I feel his knees nudge against the back of mine, and my legs curve around his. He sighs contentedly, his thumb rubbing circles against my ribcage.

I fall back asleep this way.


	3. Dichotomy

**I'm trying to spit these out, so again, sorry for the errors that I'm sure are there. Hopefully you few readers are still enjoying the story. Only a couple chapters to go! Review (:**

* * *

_It was good what we did yesterday,_  
_And I'd do it once again_  
_That fact that you are married,_  
_Only proves you're my best friend_  
_But it's truly, truly a sin._

**- Lou Reed,_ Pale Blue Eyes_**

Emmett and I are having dinner together.

Emmett is paying money for us to eat together, outside of the apartment.

He was in a good mood this morning when he asked me. "It'll be fun," he said thoughtfully.

My stomach flutters with a faint trace of excitement as I yank a dress over my head, tying the sash carefully and smoothing my hair with my palms. I haven't been on a date with Emmett since before I moved in.

Emmett's on the couch when I walk out of the bedroom, and he looks at me how I've wanted him to look at me for months. His eyes look like saucers, and I feel a blush creep over my cheeks.

"Wow," he says, his voice deep and husky. "You look...you look great."

"Thanks," I reply, my blush deepening. "I haven't worn this dress in years."

Emmett bites his lip. I can almost see his eyes darkening. He lifts himself slowly from where he was sitting, crossing the room and looking at me like I'm something to eat. He takes my hips in his hands, pulling my bottom lip between his as his groans into my mouth.

I feel my back hit the wall within seconds as his hot fingers skim my thighs, ghosting beneath the navy chiffon on my skirt. His thumb is pressing right where I want it, and I'm gasping, trying desperately to cling to reality.

"Emmett," I pant as his tongue explores the length of my neck. "Emmett, what about dinner?"

"Dinner can wait," he growls into my skin. He accents his statement by grinding himself into me. My back slides against the wall as he lifts me, using one hand to bring my leg around his waist.

"But I'm _hungry_," I insist, laughing. My giggle is partly genuine and partly nervous at how he'll respond. But my stomach is churning, and I haven't eaten since breakfast. It's not like we can't fool around after we've both had something to eat.

Emmett looks into my eyes suddenly, licking his lips. He pauses, studying me. I can tell that he doesn't like what he finds in my gaze. "Are you serious right now?" he asks. His words make me feel like a child.

"Yes," I answer, but it sounds more like a question.

His hands are off of me before I can say anything, and he's pulling at his hair. "Figures," he snaps. Then he waves his hand towards the door, his expression impatient and deeply irritated. "Go get in the fucking car, if you want to go so badly."

Our meal together lasts for thirty minutes, and Emmett barely talks because he's mad at me.

He finally tells me I nag him too much, I want too much from him, and that he can think of a hundred other things he'd rather be doing. One of those things, of course, is fucking.

He doesn't specify who.

"Where are you going?" I ask as Emmett throws clothes into a bag. He's in one of his moods, anger from earlier still consuming him.

"To stay with Jasper for the night," he answers simply.

"Oh."

He glances up at me and shakes his head, laughing bitterly as he zips the duffel closed and throws it over his shoulder.

"When are you coming back?" Part of me is afraid that he's leaving for good. Which is, of course, ridiculous, considering this is his apartment, but I've learned to expect everything and anything.

Emmett shrugs. "Tomorrow sometime. I just need to get away for a little while."

I want to tell him that that's how I feel everyday, but I bite my tongue like I always do. Because part of me still blames myself, for yesterday with Edward and for tonight before dinner. I'm careful not to think about how neither of those things were really anything to feel bad about.  
He leans forward to press his lips briefly to my forehead.  
"I'll call you," he says. I hear the door click shut behind him.

I open the door quietly after he shuts it and watch as Emmett walks down the winding staircase to the ground floor, hoping he won't look up and see me.  
He's never done something like this before. It makes me nervous.  
I stand there for a long time. I convince myself that maybe, if I keep watching for him, he'll come right back in.

_Just kidding_, he'd say, and he'd make love to me and not fall asleep right afterward.

I feel like it's my birthday all over again.

"Oh, _you_ again," I hear a voice say, and I jerk my head up in surprise. The voice is above me, and I see Edward Cullen leaning over the rail outside of Peter's door, a cigarette between his fingers.

"Me again," I agree, too sullen to feign any enthusiasm. "And you can't smoke inside."

He frowns a little at my expression, and then grins. "Don't give me that. If you all can smoke illegal substances in the apartments, then _I _can smoke a legal one in the stairway."

I shrug. "Whatever."

"What's wrong with you?" he asks. He's not annoyed, just curious.

"Not really in the mood to talk about it," I snap, turning my back to him to go inside.

The sound of his feet on the stairs makes me turn around again, and he's running down to me. "Wait, wait, wait," he says. "Don't run away. I didn't mean to make you mad or anything."

I take a deep breath, forcing a smile onto my face because I know I'm not being fair. It's not Edward's fault that Emmett decided to pack up and spend the night at a university. A university that I used to attend when I was still going places.

"I guess you can come in and keep me company, unless you're too busy," I suggest, ignoring the pang of nervousness I feel in the pit of my stomach.

Edward drops his cigarette to the cement floor, rubbing it out with the toe of his shoe. "Nah, I'm not busy. I just came over to give Peter some cash for fixing my car. I was on my way out anyhow."

"_Peter_ fixed your car?"

"Yeah," Edward answers. "The kid is literally a genius when it comes to automobiles. He really ought to be a mechanic, but he's a little too lazy."

My heart immediately starts pounding in my chest.

_I gotta go, babe. I promised Peter I'd drive him to pick up his car from the shop._

_Pete gave me some good shit last night for helping him fix his car._

Had Emmett been lying to me? If Peter was such a mechanic, then where had Emmett been?

"What's wrong? Why are you making that face?" Edward asks, breaking me from my thoughts.

I shake my head, forcing another smile as I let the two of us into the apartment.

Edward looks around, as if he's examining the place. I watch him as he runs his fingers along the picture frames scattered along the walls. Most of them still have the display pictures in them; some are even empty, but he still studies them. He even stops to read some of the titles I've hidden away on Emmett's tiny bookshelf.

"Do you approve?" I joke, raising an eyebrow.

Edward chuckles and walks to where I am, sitting in the chair next to mine. "I've never been here before, that's all."

"We just met yesterday."

Edward nods once, slowly. "Feels like forever ago. Where's your boyfriend?"

I grimace, and he notices. So I tell the truth. "He left me."

Edward's eyebrows shoot up in surprise.

"Just for the night," I add quickly. "We had a...disagreement. He went to stay with Jasper tonight."

"Oh. I'm sorry," Edward says.

"It's okay," I whisper. As soon as I say the words, I actually feel like they're true. I'm going to be okay without Emmett tonight.

Edward checks his wristwatch, obviously eager to change the subject somehow. "Well, it's only eight. We could go somewhere, if you want to."

"I don't think that's such a good idea," I answer. My eyes fall into my lap.

Edward's laugh surprises me. "Would you relax? I'm not going to take you to a fancy dinner or march you around Berkeley so Emmett can see."

"Well then where?" I ask, confused. "Peter's? Gross."

"No, not Peter's," Edward laughs. "It's a surprise."

We take a cab, and Edward is sitting so far away from me that I feel it's deliberate. I would almost have to reach to touch him.

"Why can't you tell me where you're taking me?" I ask, tugging on the hem of my shorts self-consciously. I look terrible, and I have no idea if I should have dressed more nicely or not.

Edward glances at me and rolls his eyes. "It's not really a big secret. I was on my way over anyhow, and I figured you could tag along."

The cab jolts to a standstill, and Edward pays the driver as we step out onto the sidewalk. A three-story townhouse is stretching toward the pitch sky in front of us, and Edward grins at me.

"This is my sister's house," he says.

My shocked gasp seems to satisfy him somehow.

"Edward Cullen," I snap through my teeth. "In case you didn't notice, I look like absolute _shit_."

"_I_ happen to think you look pretty fucking cute, so your opinions don't really matter in this case," he answers, and I can't help the way my stomach flips as he smiles at me. His teeth almost glow in the dark.

"I just met you!" I whisper as we get closer to the front door. "How is it going to look if you introduce someone that you've _just_ met to your sister?"

"It's really not a big deal, okay? Just calm down," he said at a normal volume, rolling his eyes again. "You're getting neurotic. You needed something to do, I needed some company, so here we are. Now stop freaking out and calm down."

The front door opened before I could think of something witty to say back.

The girl that stands in the doorway is a giant.

Well, not a giant exactly, but she looks giant to me from where I stand at five foot four. She's got to be at least five ten, and she's just as beautiful as Edward is. I try not to think of Rosalie when I see the long braid of light blonde hair pulled over one of her shoulders.

"Edward," she acknowledges, smiling brightly as she pulls her brother into an embrace. Her eyes fall on me, and her smile stays perfectly intact. "And who's this?"

"This is Bella," Edward answers, and it's then that I realize that he doesn't even know my last name.

"Swan," I mutter. He raises his eyebrows and meets my eyes before he smiles and turns back to the woman at the door.

"Bella Swan," he adds.

"Welcome, Bella," the giant says, pulling me into a hug. I'm caught off guard, and I'm afraid she can hear my sudden intake of breath as she wraps her arms around me. "I'm Edward's sister, Tanya."

She motions us into the house, and I can feel my eyes widen. The ceilings stretch high and the walls are painted a deep, welcoming blue. They are absolutely _littered _in picture frames, some with paintings, some with photos of a tiny blonde baby or Tanya with a strikingly handsome man. The wood floor creaks under my feet as I follow Edward and Tanya toward the back of the house.

Of course, the kitchen is just as charming as the foyer is. I fiddle with the hem of my shorts again as I walk into the room.

"You look _fine_," Edward mutters. Then he takes my hand.

I know I shouldn't, but I intertwine my fingers with his, and I see his cheek lift in what I can only assume is a smile.

"Liam, this is Edward's friend, Bella," Tanya says to the man that I recognize from the pictures in the hall. He's sitting at a small table pushed against the wall, typing away at a computer. He looks up at me, and his blue eyes crinkle as his grins at me.

Liam's hand extends toward mine, and I release Edward's so I can take his. "It's nice to meet you, Bella," he says.

Tanya is already putting a kettle on the stove, setting cups on saucers as Liam and Edward chat about things I can't really pay attention to. She slips from the room, leaving me alone at the counter.

I'm staring into space, my mind completely swimming with thoughts and panic and a contrasting, strange sense of comfort, when Tanya calls my name from around the corner.

Edward looks over at me from where he's sitting with Liam, an apologetic look on his face. I smile back at him, trying my best to be gracious, and then I follow the sound of Tanya's voice into the tiny sitting room just off the hall.

"I know it can get boring just listening to them talk sometimes," she says, laughing a little. "Why don't you have a seat?"

I look at her face as I fall into an arm chair across from where she's sitting. She can't be a day over twenty-five, but her manners and way of speaking are so maternal that only her appearance sets her apart from middle-aged women.

"So how come we haven't seen you around here before?" she asks. I can tell she's desperate to break the ice. I'm not saying much of anything, and it's taken me until now to realize how awkward I must look.

"Well, to be honest, I've met Edward only recently," I answer. I keep the fact that 'recently' means 'yesterday' to myself. I feel heat spread across my cheeks.

Strangely, Tanya doesn't even flinch. "Well it's nice to see someone else here other than just Edward for a change," she replies. I wait for her to laugh, but she doesn't.

"So, what, Edward has no friends?" I'm joking. But she still doesn't laugh.

"It's been hard on him," she says, smiling weakly. "You know, with everything that happened with my mom last year. But he's been great at helping out a lot. My husband works more than he's home, and it's hard on my own."

I nod like I understand what she's talking about. Something happened with Edward's mother? Maybe I'll ask about it later. But, then again, maybe I won't. I don't really even know him.

"So you have a daughter?" I ask, looking at the baby's face in a picture over the tiny fireplace.  
The house, from what I've seen, is completely and totally personalized. It looks exactly how I would want my house to look. But instead, I live in a dirty apartment with someone I rarely see rather than a comfortable townhouse with my hard-working husband and new baby.

Tanya smiles. Her teeth are as white as Edward's. "I do," she answers. "Her name is Kate."

I smile back, because it's polite. I know nothing about babies, so I don't know the right questions to ask. I pick at the strings coming from the bottom of my cut-offs.

"So Edward must like you," Tanya adds suddenly. She lifts one golden eyebrow. She and Edward are almost exactly alike.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because he brought you here," she answers. "He wouldn't do that unless he liked you."

Before I can reply, Tanya mutters something about the tea kettle she'd left on the stove and dashes from the room, leaving me alone to my thoughts.

Edward and Liam join us for tea in the sitting room. Liam talks about his job at a bank about twenty miles out of the Haight and Tanya babbles about Kate. I sit there and try to say the right things, even though my brain is working a million miles a minute and I can't focus on anything. They're nice people, they really are, I'm just not _used_ to this. I'm not used to clean houses and good manners and hot tea. And what kills me is that I _should_ be. A year ago, I would have expected an environment like this. But now, I'm a stranger.

I notice Edward watching me after a while. Tanya is telling a story about gardening or cooking or something cute Kate did, and Edward is staring intently in my direction.

"Do you want to meet Kate, Bella?" he asks suddenly, all but cutting Tanya off. I look over to her, almost asking her permission, and she nods enthusiastically.

"Sure," I agree, and I try to carefully set my cup on the side table so I won't break it. I also try to ignore the glance that Tanya and Edward exchange on our way from the room. I soon realize that Edward and I are alone, and that Tanya and Liam will not be going to see Kate with us.

Edward and I walk together into a dark room at the top of the stairs, which I assume is Kate's nursery.  
"Shhh," he cautions as we walk, and he is very careful not to rattle the doorknob too loudly or to step on creaky parts of the floor.

I hear the baby's sleeping sounds when he closes the door behind us. The only light in the room is a bluish glow from the moon through the sheers and little glow-in-the-dark stars all over the ceiling. A nightlight by the tiny closet casts a muted glow across the floor. The baby sleeps in a crib beneath a mothy canopy. I feel weird being in here.

It's obvious that Edward doesn't.  
He tiptoes across the floor to the crib and lifts the netting, dipping a finger in the crib and nuzzling the baby's face. She's looks so tiny, a lot smaller than her almost six months, and as soon as I see her I feel a weird falling feeling in my stomach like I'm on a roller coaster.  
"You want to hold her?" Edward whispers.  
"Won't it wake her?" I ask. I'm embarrassed at how scared I am to hold her. She's so fragile looking.  
Edward smirks at me like I'm an idiot and shakes his head. I hold my breath as he reaches into the crib, picking the tiny little thing up into his arms. And before I can protest, Kate is tucked into my arms perfectly, her little eyes closed and her mouth open as she stays completely asleep.

"Wow," I mutter.  
Edward chuckles softly. "She's really something, isn't she?"  
I drag my eyes from the baby's face to his, and the expression he's wearing is so strange and completely beautiful that I'm caught off guard.  
He's still staring at Kate, and I can tell just by looking at him how much he loves the little thing.  
"Yeah, she is," I answer in a breath.  
Kate takes a tiny sigh, smacking her lips as she turns her head and rubs her cheek against the crook of my neck. I'm surprised at myself when I lean my cheek against the top of her soft little head. I think I like her.

I hold her for a little while longer before Edward suggests that we put her back.  
"If she wakes up, it will be impossible to lay her back down," he explains. I hand her over, and he puts her back in her crib so slowly and carefully that it feels like minutes go by before she's finally tucked back in.

I tiptoe over to the door, and reach my hand toward to knob carefully, trying to imitate the way Edward had opened it before. The crystal of the knob is turning in my hand when I feel his fingers.

Edward is grabbing my wrist, and all of the sudden I am hyperaware of his proximity to me. I gasp and spin around.

Edward Cullen and I are chest to chest. He's looking down on me, his hand still firm on my wrist. Before I can think or speak or do anything, his lips sieze mine.

This is so much different than the street the night before, under Emmett's watching eyes. Because, now, my mind is so _open_ and my thoughts are all free that I don't see Emmett or his apartment or Rosalie Hale or _anyone_. All is see is Edward.

His eyelashes make a shadow on his face from the glow of the nightlight. All I hear is the sudden speed of his breath as he takes my tongue is his mouth, pushing me against the door. It feels sort of weird to be with him like this, in Kate's room while she sleeps, but then again it feels kind of pure and amazing. It feels kind of...beautiful? It sounds stupid in my head, but I can't think of any other word.

Edward's lips taste sweet, and his teeth are smooth against my tongue as I tangle mine with his. His hands are broad as his fingers stroke the small of my back, and I can smell him all over me as I slip my arms around his neck. The softness of his flannel shirt strokes the insides of my wrists, and I feel so good and so guilty and so innocent at the same time that it takes only a few minutes until I have to make myself pull away.

"Did I do something wrong?" he whispers. His nose is touching mine, and his eyes are still closed. I can feel his heart pounding beneath my palm.

"I think it's time to go." That's all I can think of to say.

He pulls away from me slowly and breathes for a minute before meticulously opening and closing the door again. He is careful not to look at me on the way down the stairs. I can hear his breath shake when he inhales.

Tanya isn't happy when Edward announces our departure. She's already cleared the mess from the tea, and she and Liam are together on the couch with a giant turquoise afghan spread across their laps.

"Did you like her?" Tanya asks as she hugs me again goodbye, and I can't help but smile.  
"I really do," I answer. I think of Kate in her crib beneath her canopy, but the thought only reminds me of what's just happened between Edward and I in that very room.  
"You can come see her anytime you'd like," Tanya insists as she hugs her brother, planting a sloppy kiss on his cheek.  
I laugh, internally wondering why I'd ever come visit the baby of a woman I barely even know. Then I laugh again, because I realize that I kind of want to.

As Edward and I descend the stairs of Tanya's front porch, it occurs to me that Edward's sister has almost everything in life that I wish I have, but don't.

What I have is everything I thought I wanted.

We're quiet on our way back to the main street. I guess we're walking this time instead of taking a cab. Edward probably wants to talk to me about what happened.  
His hand grabs mine. "Is this okay?" he asks.  
"It's nice," I reply.  
"That doesn't really answer the question."  
I'm quiet as I think. "No," I decide. "It's not okay. But I like it anyway."  
He squeezes my hand in reply.

I'm stuck in my brain for a few blocks as we walk together. It's hot tonight, and the street lights make everything look yellow and sunny. I feel like a highlighter.  
But now, away from the stress of Tanya and acting right and saying the right things, I realize how good I feel.

I'm used to the apartment. I'm used to Peter's parties and getting high and not having eating or sleeping routines. I'm used to not knowing if Emmett will be there when I wake up or when I go to sleep. But the hour I spent under Tanya's roof brought me halfway back into my old body, when I was still Bella Swan who talked to her mother everyday and took ballet lessons and washed behind her ears. It was a feeling I would have resented in August. But it is a feeling that I'm cherishing now.

My thoughts drift to Edward's lips. That familiar nagging feeling returns, and I think of Emmett's fingers up my skirt just a few hours before my mouth was on Edward's. My brows furrow as I suddenly grow angry at myself, just as I had last night as Emmett watched me from his bedroom window.

"You're quiet," Edward comments. "I want to know what you're thinking."

"I'm doing something wrong here, Edward," I reply.

Edward actually starts to laugh. "You're holding my hand, Bella. That's hardly deserving of a scarlet letter."

"Are you kidding me?" I scoff, pulling my hand from his. "What about...what about what happened in Kate's room? That was wrong."

Edward's hands fold over his heart theatrically. "Ouch," he says.

"Give me a break," I say with a scowl. "You know I have a...boyfriend." I almost choke on the word, and he notices. I can tell he does because he starts smiling all over again.

"Yeah. I do know that. A boyfriend who fucks Rosalie Hale behind your back."

My jaw drops. "What? How did you..."

"Peter," he explains. His expression softens now. "Look, I didn't mean to say it like that. I'm just saying that nothing you did was wrong. And if you don't want me to pull anything on you again, that's fine. I don't want anything from you."

I choke out a laugh. "Yeah. That's likely."

"What is?"

"You not wanting anything from me."

He puts his hands on both of my shoulders and pulls me to a stop. "Look, Bella Swan, I just found out your _last name_. I hardly even know you. So if you think that I only want something from you, there's something seriously fucked up in your life."

"Why did you kiss me?" I blurt out suddenly. I want to smack a hand over my mouth.

Edward is a little taken aback. "Because I wanted to," he decides. And then he just turns back the way we were going and keeps walking. My cheeks are completely flooded with color.

The walk to Emmett's apartment is long. The hair at my temples is matted with sweat and I wipe my face quickly with the bottom of my tank top before Edward can see.  
"Is he up there?" Edward asks as we both stare up at the Victorian. His eyes shift to the bedroom window, and I can almost read his thoughts.  
"He left, remember?" I remind him bitterly.  
Edward's feet shuffle against the pavement awkwardly as he shoves his hands in his pockets. "Do you mind if I come up for a little while?" The way he asks shows me that it really is up to me. I can say yes if I want, and I can say no if I want. I'm not really used to making too many decisions, and the power feels kind of nice. "I promise I won't seduce you," he adds with a wiggle of his brow.  
And, of course, I say yes. And not just because it's _him_, but because I'm kind of afraid.

You'd think by now I'd be used to being alone.

It's midnight and Edward and I are together on the couch with a pint of Ben & Jerry's between us. We are a reasonable distance apart from each other, how Rosalie and I used sit together. Nothing incriminating, nothing romantic. I'm trying to ignore the heat that his proximity is shooting through my body as I focus intently on eating the ice cream and not about how easily I could just reach over and touch him.  
"I never realized until recently that Cherry Garcia is a play off of the guy from the Grateful Dead," he muses, sucking on his spoon. "I think Ben and Jerry are just a couple of hippies."  
"I'm surprised they don't live here, then," I say, licking the rest of the ice cream off the spoon.  
"It is a little, uh, _bohemian_ here," Edward muses. "You seem to fit pretty well. Are you like, a flower child or something? Are your parents college professors? Potters? Interpretive dancers?" He laughs to himself. He thinks he's pretty funny.  
"My dad's a cop in Seattle, my mother's a lawyer, and my step-father sells life insurance."  
Edward's eyes widen. "Did _not_ see that one coming."  
"I get that a lot." I dip my spoon back into the container.  
"So how did you wind up here?" he digs.  
I pinch my eyes closed as I try to decide whether or not to tell the truth. When I open them, he's looking at me with his dark green eyes with pure curiosity, and I decide to tell him about it. About everything.

I tell Edward Cullen about high school, and about Renee, and Phil, and Berkeley. I tell him about Emmett and the toothpaste and the cafe at the Red Vic. I tell him about moving into the apartment and dropping out of school. I tell him about Alice and Rosalie and Emmett. I tell him about the acid and the music and my mother's phone calls. And he listens.

He is quiet for a while after I finish. "Damn," is all he says.  
I laugh nervously, pulling the pint into my lap as I shovel the ice cream into my mouth at an alarming rate.  
"Relax," he says, putting his hand over mine as I dip back into the carton. "I'm not going to judge you for anything. Everybody's got some bullshit."  
"I just seem to have more of it than others," I add.  
"I think you're seriously wrong about that." His jaw stiffens, and he folds his arms across his chest.

I bite my lip, looking over the back of the couch and out the window. The sky is completely black now, the lights from the city making it look all smoky and purple over the tops of the buildings lining the street. I try to think of how to ask him what I want to ask, but every approach I can come up with is completely tactless.

"I've been wanting to ask you about something ever since we were at your sister's," I say, clearing my throat.  
"If it's about me kissing you, we can just go ahead and close the subject," he replies. He's dry now. I can tell he's irritated.  
"No, it's not about that," I mutter. He waits for me to continue, but I don't.  
"Go on," he prompts.  
I swallow and collect myself. I feel like over the couple of days I've known Edward, I say and ask all the wrong things. I feel like this is one of those moments, but I want to ask so badly that my skin is crawling.  
"What happened with your mother?" As soon as the words leave my mouth I know I can't take them back.

Edward is absolutely and completely silent for a good two minutes. Two minutes doesn't sound like a long time, but in this situation, it lasted for years.  
"Did Tanya say something?" he guesses.  
I nod in reply.  
He seems to deliberate something, silent again.  
"My mother passed away last year," he offers suddenly. "She was in a head-on collision with a truck that crossed a double yellow." Then he takes the pint from my lap and starts digging at it with his spoon. His face is carefully composed to look unfazed, but the way that he's digging at the ice cream with his spoon shows exactly how uncomfortable he is. But he's sharing, because I did.  
"You don't have to talk about it," I whisper, pulling my knees to my chin.  
Edward chuckles softly. "No, it's okay. I thought about not talking about it just now, but I decided you might be worth telling."  
I wait for him to continue. His entire demeanor changes; his grip on his spoon relaxes, fine lines in his forehead smooth out, his jaw slackens slightly. He is somewhere else in his head now, and I just have to sit back and listen to him.

"My mom, the platinum blonde," he begins, smiling to himself. "I don't really know where to start."  
"What was she like?" I prompt. I find that I actually care. I want to know about her.

"There's so much to say. She was an amazing person," he says quietly. "She married my dad when she was fresh out of college and had my oldest sister Irina, then Tanya, then me. Dad skipped out when I wasn't even a year old, and I've never seen him. Mom died a week after Tanya found out she was pregnant. It was really hard on her." He takes a deep breath and pinches his eyes closed for a second. "I moved down here to help her. I was in Oregon for school and I wound up leaving. So I guess we're just a couple of college drop-outs, huh? Livin' the life." He's partly joking, but there's an edge to his voice.

"You take good care of your niece," I say. It's not a question.

"I think Kate helps us cope a little better," he says, nodding. "We lost someone, but we gained someone else, you know?"  
I nod, processing everything. Edward is watching me like he's scared of what I'll say. I can't really say anything, actually, because I'm so enthralled and fascinated with him and his selflessness and his beauty and the way his face looks as he finally, finally meets my gaze that my skin is crawling.  
"I was thinking about not telling you any of this," he tells me, "but I guess I trust you."  
"You hardly know me."  
"And I think that actually makes me trust you more. You never spill your darkest secrets to people you know well because you know what they're capable of." Edward's eyes remain on the ice cream. I think he's not going to look at me again for a while.  
"I never tell Emmett anything," I offer. I'm not sure why I say it. But I do.  
"I can tell," Edward says. "That's why you're telling me."

I feel my cheeks redden, and Edward touches his palm to my face.  
"You make me nervous," I admit. Edward just smiles at me, and kisses my cheek.

He stays for a while, asking me questions. I find out he's a master at Scrabble, and that he broke his collarbone when he was ten playing football.

"It's time for me to go," he says finally, looking toward the door. "Unless you want me to stay."

And I want so badly for him to stay with me, all night. I know Edward Cullen wouldn't be gone by the time I woke up. Edward Cullen wouldn't forget my birthday. Edward Cullen would follow me downstairs from Peter's if I was upset.

And I'm _way_ ahead of myself.

"It might be best if you go," I admit. "If he comes back..."  
"Ah. Emmett. I think he could kill me," Edward says sheepishly, standing up from the couch.  
"Probably," I agree. Just being honest.  
Edward grabs a felt-tipped pen from the coffee table, and gently turns my wrist face-up as he pulls the cap off with his teeth. When he pulls away, ten digits are scrawled on the white flesh of my arm in messy, boyish chicken scratch.  
"Let's stop running into each other," he says with a lazy smirk. "Let's do this on purpose next time."

I should say no. But I just smile from ear to ear, let him kiss my cheek again, and show him out of Emmett's apartment as my heart crashes in my chest.

As I lay in bed alone, drifting into dreams, I realize that my mind has been clear and open without any fences or barricades for the entire night since Emmett left.

The water from the showerhead is lukewarm.

It's between hot and cold, but it still feels nice because I actually feel clean. My shampoo, the only thing besides my toothbrush that actually belongs to me in this bathroom, is comforting as I work it into my hair. It smells like home.

Strands of hair get stuck around my fingers as I pull them through my knots. The apartment is completely quiet apart from the spray of the shower and my breathing, and it's kind of nice. It's the first time in a while that I've been by myself without feeling completely alone. I'm content.

I'm different.

I'm dripping wet when I type an email to my mother.  
I am not really sure what's inspiring me to write her; it's an impulsive decision that I'm not sure if I'll regret later. It's the first time I've contacted her at all in several weeks, maybe even months. I'm too afraid to call. It's like trying to walk before I crawl. I figure an email is safe.

_Mom, _I start, _I've been thinking about you lately. I'll give you a call next week. I have a new cell phone number. I might come home and visit soon. How is Phil? Talk to you soon. xx, Bella._

And that's it. It's shitty and impersonal, but the second I hit the send button, I can breathe easier.  
I miss Renee.

The sky is gray as I sit on the edge of the bed, working a brush through my hair. Drops of water bead up on my thighs as I pull the brush through lazily. Emmett is gone again. He actually never came home. He called me around lunchtime, saying he was still with Jasper and he'd be back later tonight. He apologized for walking out on me, of course, but he obviously wasn't sorry enough to come back right away.

He said Peter and his band were playing a free show at the Red Vic, and that he was going to go support him. He asked me if I wanted to come and talk about things. But of course, the invitation was flourished with reasons why I should say no, so I declined just like he wanted. What I didn't tell him was how long it took me to get the felt pen off my skin and how Edward Cullen's phone number was stored away in my address book.

My hair is almost tangle-free when the phone rings.

"Hello?" I answer. My shirt is damp against my back where my hair touches.

"Hey, Bella, is Emmett there?" It's Peter.

I feel my brow furrow, and a few seconds go by as I try not to think very hard.

"No, he isn't," I say slowly. "Aren't you supposed to be playing tonight?"

I hear him swear on the other line. "Come up here," he orders, and then the line goes dead.

I'm a zombie as I dress quickly, being very careful not to process exactly what is happening.

_He lied to you_. My thoughts flicker to life, and then shut themselves behind steel doors. The freedom I had last night is gone now. My hair is still dripping wet when I knock on Peter's door.

He answers after two knocks, like he's been at the door waiting for me. His eyes are red and drooping. Peter is high, and he forgot to cover for Emmett. His hands shake at his sides.

"Where is he?" I order, my bottom lip trembling. I've been to this point far too many times, and it's exhausting.

He opens his mouth, trying to decide what to say to me. "I'm sorry," is all that he says.

And then it's like a bomb. I know every single word that is unsaid between us in my mind, and I see Rosalie's bra under Emmett's pillow and her smile as she taunted me over it, Emmett's face and his words and the way he touched me while he was deceiving me. I see myself sitting alone is his apartment, calling my mom and then hanging up four times in a row before I finally fell asleep. And then, when it's too late, I realize I am crying.

And then I realize that I'm just as guilty.

I didn't sleep with Edward Cullen. But I let him kiss me, and I let him into Emmett's house when I knew I shouldn't have. I'm not innocent here.

I'm staring at Peter's face as he stands in a narrow opening of his apartment door, staring back at me. He watches me as my chest heaves, hot tears spilling down my cheeks as I gasp for air. He swears again.

"Shit, Bell, I'm sorry," he says, stepping out into the hall and wrapping his arms hesitantly around me. He's trying to comfort me, but the feel of his body against mine is so foreign and strange that it just makes me feel worse. I know he senses that when he steps away from me and watches me again.

"I should have known he'd do it again," I say quietly, avoiding Peter's eyes. I know it's _her_. No one even had to tell me. I know it's her again, and I hate them both.

"It's not your fault," he replies after a long pause, and then he opens his door wider, and waves his arm inside. "Come in. The neighbors might get nervous."

I wipe my face with my wrist as Peter puts a hand on the small of my back, helping me through the door. When I finally open my eyes, I wish I hadn't. Because, on Peter's couch, sits Edward. Fucking. Cullen.

"Hey man, do you mind getting out for a little while?" Peter asks him sheepishly. "We, uh, we have some issues."

My mouth is hanging open as I stare, tears falling over my lips. I can taste the salt as Edward gapes back at me. He looks as if I caught him doing something wrong.

He's up from the couch as walking towards the door before I grab his wrist.

"He can stay," I say to Peter, sniffling loudly and rubbing my hands through my hair.

Peter looks shocked. I then remember that he has no idea that Edward and I even know each other, and the way he narrows his eyes at me makes me sick.  
"How do you know each other?" he asks, motioning between the two of us. Edward is frozen like a deer in headlights.  
"Oh cut the shit, Peter," I say. "Edward and I just...we know each other, okay? Don't look at me like I have something to explain. You're the one who's been consistently covering for a guy who's been cheating on his girlfriend."  
"Have not!" Peter yells. He sounds like a little kid. "I told you last time!"  
"That was _Alice_," I correct. The tears are slowing, but my voice is still hoarse.  
"But _I'm_ the one that told her to tell," Peter admits, scratching his ear. "It's not fair, I know. But Emmett and me...it's like...a bro thing."  
Edward is inching closer and closer to the door.  
I jab my finger in Peter's face. "A 'bro thing', huh? It's called _lying_. You fix everyone's car, Peter. You're a fucking mechanic. And Emmett 'takes you to the shop' to pick up cars you can fix yourself? It's all a lie, isn't it?"

Peter is quiet, and he knows he's busted.

"Where is he?" I repeat. Peter's cracking under pressure, and I'm using it to my advantage.  
"Down the street," Peter mutters. "At that Asian fusion place on Cole Street."  
"Is she there?" He knows who I'm talking about.  
Peter nods. He looks like he is about to cry.

I'm down the stairs and in the street before Peter and Edward decide to come after me.


	4. Free

**One more chapter to go. I know this is a short one, but I feel pretty good about it. I have no beta, so I'll apologize for the umpteenth time for any errors. There are obviously breaks in this chapter, and I tried to put a star or a hyphen to indicate the break, but for some reason they won't show up. Some areas in the chapter as well as in the rest of the story refer to the past or fast forward into the future, and I'm sorry I couldn't make it more clear. Please let me know what you think (:**

* * *

_Love is all._

_-**Jack Kerouac**_

The rubber of my flip flops rubs angrily between my toes as I walk along the pavement. The sky is finally deepening into charcoal as the sun sets behind the clouds, and the wind blowing my hair into my face and the damp, rich smell of the air promises rain.

My brain is a crazy collection of nerves and anger and confusion as I move through the streets quickly. I have tunnel vision.

"Bella, don't do something you'll regret," I hear a voice call behind me. I look over my shoulder to find Peter jogging a few yards back, Edward on his heels.

For a split second, I wish that Edward would disappear. I'm unable to think of anything that's happened between us over the past couple of days, and all I can feel is irritation that he has to see me this way.

"Go home, Peter," I yell over my shoulder. I face forward and focus on where I'm going, running lines in my head as I try to think of what to say when I find Emmett and Rosalie together. My mouth tastes coppery, and my hands are curled into angry fists.

I stop across the street from the Asian restaurant, staring up at it and taking quick, shallow breaths. The pattern of running feet slow behind me.

Peter is panting. "Bella, please," he begs, tugging on the sleeve of my t-shirt. "I...this is my fault. Emmett...he'll freak."

"It's not your fault Emmett McCarty is a lying bastard," Edward mumbles, and suddenly, red fury creeps over every inch of my skin.

"This doesn't concern you! You know _nothing_ about anything," I shout at him, snapping my mouth closed when his eyes widen in shock. My words are coated in venom, and he recoils like I've bitten him. It's just my nerves, triggering my temper, but I've already said it and I can't take it back.

There are so many things I _can't_ say to him. Things I can't say because Peter is here, things I can't say because I'm _embarrassed_. I'm embarrassed because Edward knows he's the better man. He knows he's better, and he knows that I've chosen wrong. He sees me about to confront my boyfriend, who's on a date with another woman. A woman that he can sit through an entire meal with when he could barely make it through one with me. A woman who used to be my best friend. And I'm embarrassed.

Edward looks at me intently for a few moments. His eyes are swimming, and they're so dark, they look black. He swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down slowly, and he nods once. "I understand."

I feel like crying. I know I'm pushing him away, even though I barely know him enough to have anything to push him away from. My face flushes, and all I want is for him to grab my hand and come with me into the restaurant. But instead, he backs away from me. His eyes are full of acceptance.

Peter watches the two of us with a puzzled look on his face. He watches as Edward speaks silent words to me, and he watches my face as I fight tears. But, thank God, he doesn't say a word.

And then, before I can think of anything to say, Edward Cullen's back is to me as he walks away from us. Edward Cullen, the man who is supposed to be a stranger, is walking away. It hurts me way more than it should. I realize that I have to do this alone.

"What was _that_?" Peter asks quietly.

I don't answer. Instead, I turn my attention back to the restaurant in front of me. I have to do this alone.

"Bella, please." Peter is begging again. "Emmett's my best friend."

"Is it really worth it, though?" I ask, not bothering to look at him. My voice is inflectionless beneath the weight of my sudden, paralyzing fear.

He is quiet for a minute. "No," he murmurs, his voice heavy with conviction. "Maybe not."

Peter's words are words of blessing. As soon as he speaks them, it's like a brick is off my back, and I'm set free into the open air between where I stand and where I know Emmett is. I'm alone in unclaimed land, without Edward and without anyone. Anything can hurt me here. I have no comfort. No home field advantage.

I'm not sure if Peter stays or goes as I step onto the empty street. I barely notice anything else as I walk, my eyes glued on the neon lights radiating from the large window in the front of the restaurant.

It smells nice. The closest thing to this Emmett's treated me to lately was Ramen noodles. Rosalie is probably enjoying this. But she's probably enjoying the fact that I was supposed to have no idea about this even more.

It takes me ten years to make it to the other side of the road. I almost turn back. But I know it's now or never. Months of being trapped, suffocated, smothered...I realize for the first time that I can set myself free. Within twenty minutes, the world has shifted. Everything that has been brewing beneath the surface is coming out suddenly, the thoughts I've shut down and restricted bursting from the cells of my brain like beams of light. The only thing holding me now is my own feet as I'm frozen to the asphalt.

Then, it's like a movie. It's one of those moments that only happens in books or films; the part where the main character has flashes of mental images that either encourage her or defeat her.

I see Emmett's face. I see the way he looks at me, with faint interest, only completely engaged when I'm naked and he's bored. Then I see Edward's face, inches from mine, his chest pressed against me as he takes me in his hands. I see Emmett, either asleep when I wake up or gone, and I see Edward on the couch sharing his secrets with me. I see months with Emmett, and then I see days with Edward.

It's black and white, night and day.

There was one night when Emmett and I were together, probably around a month and a half ago, and I should have known then.

I'd been in the chair in the den, reading a book, and his lips had found my earlobe, pulling my sweater from my shoulders and wrapping my body around him as he walked us into the bedroom. He put me on the mattress, clawing at my skin and my clothes until he was in me, a gasp raking up my throat. He was loud that night, growling and moaning as his mouth searched me, and it excited me. It made me happy, that he was so into it.  
I remember being happy when he threw his head back, emptying himself, the sweat on his skin glistening in the moonlight peaking through his partially closed curtains.

"Rosalie," he'd gasped as he spilled into me, collapsing against my chest.  
I don't think he even realized he'd said her name and not mine.

He slept beside me all night while I stayed awake. I never mentioned it, and he never brought it up.

I should have known then that no, he hadn't changed. He wasn't sorry, and nothing was different.

I should have known.

These thoughts, though painful, propel me, and I'm pushing the door open before I can make any sort of deliberate decision.  
My heart is crashing in my chest as I scan the room for a head of blonde hair, waving away a mob of black-clad hostesses as they try to ask me if I want a table or if I'm meeting someone.

The restaurant is dark, illuminated only by low flood lighting and candlelight. I can hardly see anything as I search for them.

I'm looking, looking, looking, but I _hear_ her before I see her.

Her laugh is high-pitched and grating from where she sits, louder than the already noisy volume of the full room. I find the back of her head at a table in the bar area, wheat hair tumbling down her back as she leans in closely to a dark-haired man that I share a bed with. And then I'm _flying_.

He sees me before she does. And the look on his face is amazing in its fear. His jaw gapes, his eyes widening as the intake of his breath radiates throughout the room. Emmett shoots up from his chair, almost knocking it over.

"Bella," he whispers. The shock of my entrance is written all over his face, and his breath reeks of the contents of several empty glasses on the tabletop.

Rosalie turns her head in my direction lazily, and I swear there's a ghost of a smile on her face. Almost like she'd been expecting me.

"Look who's graced us with her presence," Rosalie spits, her blue eyes clouded with both irritation and amusement.

"Shut the _fuck _up, you home wrecking bitch," I sneer. She just smiles and remains in her seat.

"You," Emmett snarls, pointing a finger just over my shoulder.

I turn and see Peter paused awkwardly in the entryway, his hands shoved in pockets. Immediately, he holds them out, palms framing his face.

"Look, this isn't my fault," he says quickly. I can tell he's scared.

"You lied to me," I say through my teeth, taking the attention away from Peter. This isn't about him, after all. Anger is freely coursing through my veins. My weakness over the last year of my life is transformed into strength in this moment, and I need all of it that I can muster.

Emmett moves him mouth, fighting for words. "You...you followed me?" His words are suspicious and accusing.

I laugh bitterly. "Unfortunately for me, I believed your lie. But you friend Peter here clued me in just in time for me to see this for myself."

People were watching us now. A gray-haired man beside me clears his throat, but I ignore it.

"So, what?" Emmett growls, shoving up all of his defense. "You're allowed to spend the day with that red-headed bitch and I'm not allowed to do anything?"

"Are you _kidding_ me?" I choke, pointing a finger in Rosalie's face. "You were _sleeping _with her! I never did anything to betray your trust!"

"Get your finger out of my face, and lower your fucking voice," Rosalie says at normal volume. "You're drawing attention."

And then that's it. That's all it takes.

Before I can process anything that I'm doing, my fingers find themselves under her appetizer, sending the entire bowl of goat cheese fondue down the front of her stupid fringy halter top. Her mouth pops open in shock as she holds her hands away from her body.

"Excuse me," a female voice says. It's a waitress or manager of some sort, and she's yanking Peter toward us by the crook of his arm like a rag doll. "I'm going to have to ask you all to leave."

"I'm not eating any of this shit, anyway," I spit, shrugging past the staring people and the gossiping hostesses as I make my way back into the street. Immediately, I lift my hand out to a passing cab. Peter bolts from the restaurant, looking anxiously over his shoulder.

"Get in!" he shouts as the cab pulls to the curb. It's obvious that he's running from Emmett, and I don't necessarily blame him. The two of us slide into the back seat as he yells instructions to the driver.

We pull up outside of our building within minutes. My palms are sweaty and my heart is racing and I can't feel my legs. I know that this isn't over yet, and I keep replaying the events at the restaurant over and over in my head.

I should have known he'd be there.

Edward is sitting on the steps leading up to the stoop, his hands clasped between his knees. His hair is messy and pulled at. "Bella, are you okay?" he asks, jumping up and jogging to me as I hand a bill to the cabbie.

I realize that my breaths are noisy and shallow. I'm on the verge of hyperventilation. And I'm shaking my head so fast that my hair is whipping at my shoulders.

Peter looks scared. He's posed in a position that looks as if he wants to take off running, but he stays. He's probably still guilty.

"He'll come here," I gasp. "He'll know I came here."

Edward's arms wrap around me, and I can't help but lean my face into the cotton of his shirt. I'm shaking, and even his hand rubbing circles in my back isn't helping. I know I can't run. Emmett will be back, and I have nowhere to go that he can't find me. So I remain there, on the concrete steps, waiting. Edward eventually steps away from me, and I'm thankful. It's not right for him to hold me, not now.

Rosalie isn't here when Emmett arrives.

He's disposed of her somewhere, and he's alone. I can tell he's drunk. The way he shakes as he approaches me brings tears to my eyes almost immediately. Tremors roll through his body, and I see no humanity left in his eyes. He is angry, and he's out for blood.

I've played with fire, so naturally, I'm going to get burned. I've asked for it.

"So you show up to dinner and then just run away, Bella?" Emmett asks, taunting. "You should know from your upbringing that it's impolite to leave the dinner table without being excused."

I choke out a sob, my brows furrowed. "Don't laugh at me."

"Who's laughing?" he asks. His smile frightens me. He takes a step forward.

I take a step back. He smiles wider.

"You're a good lay, Bella," Emmett chuckles. "You've been easy to live with. Not very perceptive. You let everything go for this," he motioned between the two of us, "but did I ever ask for anything from you?"

"I gave up everything for you," I whisper, hot tears rolling down my cheeks.

"That was your decision." Emmett shrugs indifferently, and my heart shatters. "So where are you now? Following me, like a puppy. You don't speak to your parents. You dropped out of college. And for what? For us?" He laughs as if it's the most pathetic thing he's ever heard of.

I hang my head, my eyes on my feet. "You never gave up anything for me."

"That should have been the first sign," he replies soberly. "But maybe you're just too stupid." There is no love or kindness in his eyes. I'm ashamed of myself that I even try to look for any.

"Hey man," Peter says, stepping between us as Emmett takes another heavy step toward us. "Take it easy."

"No, you take it easy, fucking traitor," Emmett roars.

It's too late to do anything when Emmett's fist meets Peter's nose. I hear myself scream, but I'm not in control of myself anymore. I'm numb.

"And you!" Emmett shouts over my head, his eyes narrowing. His anger is suddenly in full force again. I realize he's pointing at Edward. "What kind of nerve do you have showing your fucking face here?"

"Come on, Bella, let's go," Edward mutters into my ear, grabbing my arm. I can tell he's nervous by the sound of his voice.

"Aw, you're leaving?" Emmett asks mockingly, taking yet another step closer to me.

Peter is on the ground, a thin stream of blood coming from his left nostril. He struggles to get to his feet, his eyes wide like saucers.

Emmett pulls his arm back away from me, and I pinch my eyes closed to prepare for the blow. I wait for a moment, and nothing happens. Cracking my eye open, I realize that Emmett's entire expression has changed.

His fist is still pulled back, but his eyes are sad. His fist unclenches as his arm falls limply to his side, just before he reaches them out gently to me. His face is destroyed as I flinch away from him, afraid he'll hurt _me_ like he hurt Peter.

"Bella," he breathes, all of the sarcasm and anger from before evaporated from his tone. "Bella, I wouldn't...I would never..."

I'm gasping, and Emmett's giant shoulders are still shaking. Peter is frozen on the ground. Edward's hands are on my shoulders. The street is silent.

"Let's go," Edward repeats quietly, pulling me back against his chest.

I watch Emmett for a silence moment, my heart completely breaking for the first time. I thought it had broken several times during our relationship, and I'd simply mended it. But I had been wrong.

As I stared into the eyes of the man I thought I loved, I realized that my heart was completely battered and broken on a level that I couldn't even recognize. His eyes were glued on mine, his lower lip trembling. His hands were still slightly extended toward me, and I began crying all over again.

"All this time..." Emmett trails off, pulling at his hair roughly. "And now this."

"And now this," I echo, fighting to keep my voice strong. I reach behind me for Edward's hand before turning away from Emmett, leaving him on the sidewalk to watch me go, just as I'd watched him so many times before.

My grandfather died when I was nine.

He was very old, and it was his time to go, but it still devastated me. I remember crying myself out until I fell dead asleep on my father's shoulder. I remember I slept for _hours_, the weight of the trauma knocking me unconscious until my body decided it was okay to wake up again. This always happens to me. I always wear myself out with tears.  
I fall asleep against Edward's chest as we ride silently in the back of the cab, classical music playing quietly over the radio. It calms me down.

I wake up in the morning disoriented.  
I'm wearing the same clothes from last night, and my eyes are swollen and my head pounds. The room I'm in is foreign, but the sheets of the bed I'm lying on feel good against my bare feet.

"You're awake," he says, and I turn around quickly with a gasp.

Edward is on the bed beside me, lounging on top of the covers wearing fresh clothes. He smiles a weak smile, but sadness still tinges his dark eyes.

"Where am I?" I ask, and I wince at the rasp of my voice.

"Tanya's," he answers simply. He shrugs and smiles again. "I wasn't sure if you'd appreciate me taking you to my place. You know, after all that happened."

I pinch my eyes closed, trying to block out all of the memories from the night before. I'm not quick enough though; I see Rosalie's mocking face and the blood from Peter's nose before I can shake my head clean of thoughts.

"Shit," I curse, rubbing the bridge of my nose between my thumb and pointer finger.

Edward frowns. "Was it a mistake? Me bringing you here?"

The chuckle that comes from my throat is dark. "It's not like I have anywhere else to go."

"You said last night that this doesn't concern me...you're right. I apologize that I'm involved to this extent." His tone is formal. It bothers me.

I lock eyes with him, a weak smile on my lips. "I'm so sorry for that, Edward. I'm sorry you've been dragged into this. But if you...if you hadn't been there, I'm not sure what would have happened."

We sit together in silence for a few minutes, thinking. A shudder rolls through me, and he places his warm hand over mine.

"Your phone rang while you were sleeping," he says, pointing across us to the bedside table beside me.

I look at him again, nervous. "Did you look and see who it was?" I ask. My voice shakes. I'm afraid it was Emmett.

Edward shakes his head. "Again, not my place."

My hand trembles as I reach for the phone, and I take a deep breath as I open it. The name on the screen surprises me. Alice.

"Alice?" I ask, raising my eyebrows.

Edward shrugs. "Peter probably told her what happened. I'll let you call her back."

I want to grab his arm as he gets up from the bed. I want to tell him to stay with me. But what I want and what I know is right has been two very different things lately, and I know that it's probably best for me to make this phone call alone. I know it's not coincidence that Alice is calling me. She knows.

Alice picks up on the first ring.

"Bella!" she screams. "What happened? Oh my _God_, are you okay? Tell me everything! Where are you? What's going on?"

I can't help but smile at her over-the-top reaction, in spite of everything. Alice begins to cry.

I forget about the last couple of months and the awkwardness between us as I explain everything to her, sparing no detail.  
I'm free now.

"If you need anything," she says, "and I mean _anything_, call me right away. I can be there in twenty minutes, whenever."

"Thanks, Alice," I reply. My voice is warm and content. "Uh...thank you so much for calling."

She laughs through her tears, a hard chuckle. "I'm so sorry I've been such a jerk lately, Bella. I'm sorry I haven't been there for you."

"It's okay," I assure her, and I mean it. "I'm just glad you still care enough to call."

As I hang up with her, I realize that Alice isn't Peter's anymore. She's not Peter's, or Emmett's. She's just mine.

My friend.

I hold the phone in my hand for a while after I finish talking to Alice. Edward isn't in the room still. I can hear voices from downstairs, and I'm hesitant to leave the room. Part of me is embarrassed to see what Tanya and Liam have to say. I wasn't aware at all coming into their home, and their hospitality chagrins me in an odd way.  
My chest swells with emotion as I think of them-Edward, Tanya, Liam, little Kate. I think of just a few nights ago, when Tanya confided in me, telling me about how she worried for Edward. I think about Edward on Emmett's couch as he told me about his mother and how much he loved her. She's gone now, but he still loves her just the same as if she was here.  
It makes me feel guilty. It's not the same guilt I'd been feeling for being with Edward behind Emmett's back. This feeling is new. It's guilt that I feel for having a mother, and for abandoning her. I've been selfish. I've let Emmett alter me beyond recognition. But now, as I lay in Tanya's spare bed instead of on Emmett's mattress on the floor of a dusty apartment, all I can think about is all the things I've had to give up. And what I have to do to get them back.

I look down at the phone, and a thought that has been playing in my head all morning burst to the front of my mind. Before I can control myself and think rationally, my shaking fingers are dialing a familiar number.

"Hello?" she answers.

"Hi," I reply. My voice breaks.

"Who is this?" Renee asks, confusion coloring her tone. "Is that...Bella, is that you?"

I smile, a tear slipping out of one eye. "Yeah. It's me, Mom."

The line is silent. I ask for her, thinking she's hung up on me.

"I got your email," she blurts, catching her breath in gasps. "But I thought I'd never actually hear your voice. God, Bella, I don't even know where you _are_ anymore."

"I know, I know," I answer quickly. "I know, Mom. I'm so sorry."

She asks me what's happened, and if anything's wrong. I decide not to tell her. She doesn't need to know.  
All she knows by the time I say goodbye is that I love her, that I'm sorry, and that I'm coming home.

I'm just hanging up when Edward comes back into the room.

He closes the door and leans against it, watching me.

"Can I sit?" he asks, looking at the empty space on the bed beside me.

"Get over here," I reply with a half-hearted smile.

He crosses the room slowly, almost carefully, before lowering himself beside me. I look at his face as he lays there, studying his eyes and his jaw and his cheekbones and his full lips freely for the first time, moving my head to his chest. His body tenses beneath my cheek, and I look up at him.

"Are you sure this is okay?" he asks.

I nod, his shirt brushing against my face. "I haven't been choosing the right things for a while now," I muse. "If for some reason this isn't okay, I'm sure I'm experienced enough to be able to get over it."

He chuckles as his hand finds my hair, his thumb rubbing gently against my temple.

Wind from the passing cars blows my hair off my face and shoulders. It feels nice, considering the ridiculous heat that's blanketed San Francisco lately. I sigh, laughing softly as I look up at the familiar building. I've been here, looking up at it like this, _way_ too much lately. But this time is so much different from the last.

Edward squeezes my hand. "You don't have to go up there, you know. You can try again later, when you're ready."

"It's now or never," I breathe, squeezing his hand back. "I owe it to him."

Edward presses his lips against the top of my head, brushing his thumb across my knuckles before letting go of my grip. "I'll be in the hallway the entire time. If you need me, I'll be there."

I look up at him, squinting against the light of the sun, and he leans down to meet my lips. "Let's go," I whisper, my nose against his.

I realize as I walk up the brick steps with Edward on my heels that it's been over a week since I found Emmett with Rosalie in the restaurant. It's been eight days, and yet it feels like forever.

Neither of us speak as we climb to the second floor. I'm quiet out of nervousness, and Edward is quiet out of respect. He leans against the railing of the stairs, down the hall from Emmett's apartment.

"I'll be right here," he says, his eyes full of encouragement.

I flutter my fingers at him in a wave before turning to walk up to the door that I've been through so many times. I still have the key, and it's white-hot in my pocket.

It takes a minute before Emmett opens the door. His hair is wet and his cheeks are red, like he's just taken a shower in too-warm water. He smiles sheepishly at me, recognition in his brown eyes.

"I've been wondering when you'd show up," he says in a low, quiet voice. He laughs a short laugh, and then glances over my shoulder at where Edward stands down the hall. "He can come in, too, you know."

I follow Emmett's gaze, and Edward grins. "It just needs to be me and you," I reply, meeting Emmett's eyes again. "He'll be fine waiting."

Emmett nods deeply and opens the door to let me in. I duck under his arm from where he holds the doorframe, and I ignore the fact that he and Edward exchange understanding glances before Emmett finally shuts the door.

I stand in the center of the room awkwardly. As I look around the den, just as Edward had a week ago through stranger's eyes, I realize that this place has never been my home.

"Looks the same," I say. It's meant to be a joke, but neither of us laugh.

"I packed most of your stuff up for you," Emmett mutters, nodding to several cardboard boxes lined along the wall by his bedroom. "I hope I packed everything okay."

"I'm sure it's fine," I assure him.

"You can, uh, have a seat, if you want."

"Thanks," I whisper as I lower myself into the leather couch I used to sit in everyday.

Emmett sits in the chair opposite me. He rubs a hand through his wet hair and laughs under his breath. "Well _this_ is weird."

"An understatement," I agree, chuckling.

"I never thought of this ever happening to us," Emmett mutters. His eyes are glued to the floor, and he's more serious than I've ever seen him. "I guess I never saw us with a future at all, good _or_ bad. I always focused on the present. I never anticipated anything, nevermind _this_."

I lean forward, reaching for his knee. He flinches at the contact before locking eyes with me. "We're different, Em," I say in a voice so quiet that I can barely hear even myself.

He nods, a ghost of a smile on his lips. "I know."

I sit back down against the cushions, and we just look at each other for a while. As I sit beneath his stare as I have so many times before, I feel the world drop into line. I feel _good_. I know it's all going to be okay from now on.

"Do you remember all the bullshit I used to say about destiny?" Emmett asks.

"Yeah," I nod.

"You think this is it?" He motions between the two of us. "You think this is what it's supposed to be?"

I think for a minute before I answer. "Yeah. I guess I do."

He looks to his lap as his hand hovers for a moment over his right pocket. "I saved this," he says, pulling something from it. "I've kept it all this time, and I think you deserve it back."

I take a little square of paper that he hands me. It's completely white, like printer paper, and when I open it I gulp in a gasp of air.

"You kept it," I breathe, my voice breaking. It's the last assignment I ever completed at Berkeley, the night after I first saw Emmett.

Emmett smiles, his teeth showing from behind his lips. "I want you to have it back. I never deserved it in the first place," he says. "I wanted to remind you of what you used to be capable of, before I brought you into all of this. Before I ruined you."

"You never ruined me," I argue, shaking my head. "You made me better."

"Did I really?" he asks skeptically, raising an eyebrow.

"I think you did."

"How, by forgetting your birthday and not paying you any attention and _cheating_ on you? By saying all of that cruel shit to you that night you left?"

His words sting, but we both know they're true. I shrug. "Everything made me stronger, Emmett. I came here with you to find what I want. I thought I wanted this at first. But you helped me discover that what I thought I wanted wasn't what I want at all. Even through all the bullshit."

He smiles, and I remember all over again how I even came to love him in the first place. His eyes crinkle at the edges as he looks at me, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. His grin falls suddenly, a crease forming between his eyebrows.  
"He's good for you, isn't he? That Edward guy."  
"He is," I answer honestly. No use playing _that_ down anymore.  
"A lot better than I ever was, that's obvious." Emmett's smirk is dark.  
"You tried, Emmett. You tried for a long time. And you hurt me, I'll admit. But nothing could have happened the way that it did if I hadn't _let_ it happen in the first place."

"I'm so sorry, Bella," he murmurs, his eyes swimming. "You didn't deserve any of this."

"Maybe, maybe not," I say. "But it's over. I could hate you, or we could end like this. And I think this is the better option."

"It's good that you don't hate me." He smiles. "Even though you should."

As I watch him, grinning at me with that face that I used to love and those lips that I used to kiss, I realize that I could never hate Emmett McCarty, not even at all. Throughout everything, through all the pain and the lying and my life crumbling to rubble in front of my very eyes, I could never hate him.

Because I'm different, I'm better. And I couldn't do this without him.

Emmett doesn't hug me goodbye. It's better that way.  
He walks with us down to the street, two of my boxes in his arms. Edward carries two as well, and I hold only one. Peter's car is on the curb, the trunk open. He's sitting in the driver's seat, a white bandage across the bridge of his nose, and Emmett leans through the open passenger window to do some weird bro clasping snapping handshake thing. I laugh in spite of myself, closing the trunk and opening the back door to get inside.

Emmett nods at Edward before leaning down to peck me quickly on the cheek.  
"You take care, okay?" he says quietly, so Edward and Peter can't hear. "I know you don't owe me anything. But if you ever need me, I'll be here."

I smile up at him, pressing my copy of his apartment key into his palm, and he exhales a shaky breath. "I know that."  
Emmett closes the car door slowly, a kind of dreamy expression on his face, and watches from the sidewalk as the three of us drive down Haight Street.


	5. Personal

_It's gettin' dark, too dark to see,  
__I feel I'm knockin' on Heaven's door._

_-__**Bob Dylan  
***_

"So this is it," I say, pacing the floor in Edward's tiny apartment.

It's pitch black outside all of the sudden, a heavy storm brewing as wind and rain pound against the giant window that looks out over the street. Music plays softly from a vintage record player in the corner, but the sound of the storm nearly drowns out the voice of Bob Dylan. _Knockin' On Heaven's Door_. I laugh to myself.

The wood creaks under my feet, just like the floor in my old apartment. Standing here, in Edward's home, makes everything seem so much more _real_ for some reason. Having him in Emmett's apartment and even being with him in Tanya's home felt so much different than this. This feels...personal. The boxes of my things stacked awkwardly by the door accent my thoughts perfectly.

"This is it," Edward echoes, his tone sheepish. He cracks open two beers and hands one to me.

There's photos on the wall everywhere. It's kind of like a condensed version of Tanya's house, just a whole lot smaller. I see pictures of Peter and Edward, some even with Alice in them, and some other people Emmett used to roll around with, all intermixed with Kate and Irina and Tanya and Liam and a gorgeous older woman with platinum blonde hair. I can only assume that this is Edward's mother.

"Is that her?" I ask, nodding up toward the largest picture on the wall, of the two of them.

Edward's hand brushes the small of my back. "That's her," he answers quietly. "Pretty, wasn't she?"

"Beautiful," I breathe.

We both stand there, looking down at the sweating bottles in our grip. His hand still ghosts along my lower back.

I clear my throat. "So where is Peter gonna live now?"

"The same place he always has. He'll stay in his old building."

"But I thought...with everything that's happened..." I couldn't believe it. All I could think about was Emmett punching Peter to the ground, and the white bandage that was now stretched across the bridge of Peter's nose.

"It's a 'bro' thing," Edward said, laughing. "They'll get over it. It'll be awkward, but they'll get over it."

"That's good."

Silence.

"We can sit on the couch if you-"

"Edward," I interrupted, locking eyes with him. "Thank you. For everything."

His face glows as he smiles, little wrinkles fanning from the corners of his eyes as his perfectly white teeth appear from behind his lips. "Bella Swan, I think you might be the most fantastic human being that I've ever met."

Edward grabs the full beer from my hand and nudges it onto a beaten up coffee table, along with his own. I stand there, frozen as he pushes against my back with his palm, and now I have no reason to fight it. My heart flutters as our hips meet, my stomach pressing against his as I bow my chest away from him.

"Believe it or not," he murmurs, "but you're the first girl I've ever brought here."

I raise an eyebrow. "Bullshit."

"No, I'm serious," he laughs. "I feel like it's kind of, I don't know, personal? This place is where I keep things that are important to me. I don't let just anyone come in here."

"It's a home," I say, more to myself than to him.

Edward chuckles softly, his stomach moving against mine. "If you could call this tiny place a home, then, yeah."

For the first time since I've met him, I'm the first to lean in. I suddenly feel like I'm thirteen again, making the first move on the guy I like at the middle school dance. My heart is pounding in my chest and my stomach is doing somersaults, Edward's sweet breath fanning across my face and our noses millimeters apart.

He gasps, and the sound sends my heart flying all over again. Our lips collide suddenly, and I smile against his mouth as the chorus of the song builds up from where it plays in the corner.

My life, the epic film.

I love this kiss, so much more than the last. Because now, we kiss with urgency and without restraint. His lips move at an even pace against mine, but the force in his hands and jaw show me that he's just as calm as _I_ am. And I'm _not _calm, not even at all.

One of his hands falls just behind my right ear as he twists his fingers into my hair. I realize that I'm panting when the song ends, and the feedback from the spinning record competes with the rain against the window. But we ignore it, pulling away for just a second before meeting again.

I can hardly see straight when Edward's hand leaves my hair and clasps around the back of my thigh. He picks me up suddenly, and a crazy little giggle slips through my lips as my legs fall around his hips. He smiles at me as he walks forward, and I have to look over my shoulder to see where we're going.

His bedroom.

He hears my sudden intake of breath, and his brow furrows with confusion. "Is this okay?" he asks. It's so classically _Edward_. If I had a nickel for every time I heard those three words come out of his mouth...

But when I think about it, and I mean really think about it, I know that _yes_, of _course_ it's okay. Edward is a man I've known for a matter of days. But he's not a stranger anymore. Suddenly, it's not just about the lust and the surge of feelings and the heat spreading through my limbs for him...it's logic. He's not Emmett. He'll be there when I wake up.

So I nod my head, planting a hard kiss to his lips as he leans me back against his mattress that actually has a frame and a box spring and a headboard.

I think that what kills me, in the best way possible, is that Edward undresses me _very_ slowly. And my mind can't help but make comparisons to what he's doing and how Emmett would have done it. It probably would have already been over with Emmett. He'd probably be making a sandwich or sitting on the couch by now. But here was Edward, planting kisses to the insides of my knees as he pulls my jeans over my heels.

The way he feels, the way he touches me, it all makes sense to me now. My brain is working a mile a minute as Edward naked shows me that _yes_, he _does_ look as good without clothes as he does in them. I try to shake my head clear as his tongue works along the length of my neck. And, thank God, it works.

My chest is heaving, even ten minutes after it's all over.

Edward's eyes are half-closed, but he fights to keep them open as his eyes dart over to me every few moments. "You okay?" he asks, his voice tinged with worry.

I can't fight the laugh that bubbles up from my throat. "You're impossible," I giggle, turning on my side to look at him. "I'm better than okay."

"No regrets?"

"No regrets."

He smiles, kissing the corner of my mouth. We're quiet as we lay together. The rain picks up. It sounds like the building's about to blow over.

"You should go back to Berkeley," Edward says suddenly.

"What?" I ask, confused.

He licks his lips, locking eyes with me. "I won't make you change anything for me, Bella," he whispers. "I want you to have what _you_ want. And I know that you want to go back."

I don't answer him, or agree, or nod or anything. Instead, I just look at him as his eyes grow more and more tired, and I only close my eyes when I hear Edward's soft snore from where he sleeps beside me.

* * *

"I don't want you to go. Stay here with me."  
Edward's hair, in all of it's crazy, Clairol auburn glory, is blowing in the wind as we stand together on the curb outside of his apartment.

The town car I called for is parked beside me, and I lean my back against the door, my duffel bag on the roof behind my head.

"I _have _to go," I answer him, reaching forward to grab his arm.

He leans into me, and our lips touch for just a second before he leans his forehead against mine. He takes a deep breath, and his eyes are sad.

I've been staying at Edward's for three days now. I've known where I'm headed ever since I woke up in Tanya's guest bedroom, but it took me those three days to clear my head and to realize exactly what I'm doing and how I'm going to do it.

"I know you do," Edward murmurs, touching his lips to mine once more. "Don't forget about me or anything like that."

I lean into his arms as he squeezes me in a bear hug. "I'll only be gone for a week. Maybe two. But it would take a lot longer than that to make me forget about you."

He squeezes my shoulders and leans away to look at me. His eyes are happy now. My response pleases him.

I watch as he tosses my bag into the trunk of the car. He tucks me into the backseat, grabbing either side of my face as he kisses me for the last time, his shoulders rising as his lips press hard against mine.

Edward's gaze doesn't leave mine as he closes the door, his hand tapping the roof of the car so the driver will know I'm ready. He's still watching me as we pull away from the curb. Our eyes are locked until the car turns onto a new street, and he's completely out of view.

We don't stop driving for what seems like days, although I know it's only a few hours. We don't stop until I see a familiar stretch of green lawn with a familiar house and a familiar woman on the front path, waiting for me.

I'm in Renee's arms the second the driver steps on the brake, and I know that this is the home I've been looking for all along.

I stayed at Renee's through the end of July. It was longer than I'd planned, but once I was there, it was almost impossible for me to go. I stayed with Phil and my mother for almost four weeks, but not once did I mention anything that had happened with Emmett, with drugs, with the Haight.

But I did tell her about Edward.

It's almost ironic as Renee and Phil drive back to San Francisco with me. I'm bringing the mother I'd neglected back to the place that had sucked me away from her, but my thoughts and my heart are so completely altered that everything feels different this time. I feel a surge of butterflies as the taxi zooms by Edward's apartment, and all of the sudden, I feel so overwhelmed that I kind of want to cry.

"That's where he lives," I say to Renee, pointing up at where his apartment window is.

"Is he going to meet us there?" she asks, he eyes flickering from his window to my face.

"Yeah," I answer, nodding. "I feel like I need his opinion."

"So he must be important," Phil says. His tone is lightly joking, but I don't laugh.

"Yeah. He really is."

My breath catches in my throat as I see him through the cab window. He's sitting on the railing that lines the steps up to the stoop of the building, the man who I assume is my realtor leaning against the rail opposite him.

His eyes light up as I push open the door, kicking up dust as I run into his arms. He smells my hair, and Renee clears her throat. He lets me go, and shakes her hand.

"I've heard a lot about you," she says, a hint of a smile on her lips and in her eyes.

"All good things, I hope," Edward replies, smirking.

Edward and Phil greet one another as well, and as we follow the realtor up the stairs to the third floor, Renee grabs my hand.

"I like him," she mouths, the sound of Phil's and Edward's laughter accenting her statement.

"Me too," I mouth back, smiling.

Edward comes up behind me as I stare out of the window of what is to be my new home. Renee and Phil are talking with the realtor, asking typical parent questions, like how long it takes to get to Berkeley's campus using public transportation, and stuff like that.

Edward's hands grip my shoulders, and his lips meet my ear.

"You can just save all this money and move in with me," he mutters, his lips brushing my neck.

I giggle and turn to him, placing my lips on his. "You and I both know that I need my own place."

"I know," he says. "I just figured that I'd try."

"Maybe one day," I reply, laughing again. "Just not today."

He kisses me again. "Maybe one day," he agrees.

* * *

**Well, that's it! I hope you enjoyed this, in spite of the short HEA ending. I had a lot of fun writing it. Let me know if I did okay! Thanks for reading, guys. **


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